HOWL
by gaygypsybarmitzva4thedisabled
Summary: The Argents never burned down Derek's house. Stiles never felt useless. This is not a happy story. Human AU. Warnings: off-stage abuse/noncon, violence. Rated T for language and disturbing themes.
1. Chapter 1

**WARNING: REFERENCES TO ABUSE/NONCON/TORTURE**

**MAY BE TRIGGERING**

(this is a rape recovery/aftermath fic with_very_ slow building Stiles/Derek. nothing explicit, but if that's not your speed, please stop reading here.)

* * *

**HOWL**

**chapter one**

_He's not the begging type._

_He's not the fighting type, either._

_Well._

_Not anymore._

_He's the just-lay-there-and-think-of-England type, and if she couldn't practically taste his fear and pain and disgust in the air, she might be bored._

_But she can feel the frantic skittering heartbeat, smell the salt welling up behind his eyes._

_He is the crying type._

_And that makes it all worth it._

* * *

The first time Stiles sees Derek, he's six and Derek is twelve. Camden Lahey, actual human giant, is lazily dribbling a basketball, showing off; overhand, underhand, _am I gonna aim? Ha-ha fooled ya._ Camden's a jerk about it; grinning and flexing and basically making an ass of himself, pausing to leer at a pretty blonde girl who rolls her eyes and keeps walking, a ghost of a grin twitching on her lips. He's undeterred; only when a shorter (who isn't, compared to Camden Mammoth Freak Creature Lahey?), dark-haired guy jabs him in a Gigantor arm muscle and moans, "C'mon, man, shoot already!" does he finally stop messing around and take a shot. It sinks perfectly, of course, and Camden swerves around, probably looking for the blonde. His eyes find their target; he pauses, lets a slow grin slink out. His teeth find the light of the sun square by square.

"You like that, Jessica?"

His dark-haired friend rolls his eyes, and yeah, Stiles definitely likes him.

Then Isaac Lahey tugs at his sleeve and says, "We playing, or are you just gonna stare at Cam all day?"

"Not Cam," Stiles says, eyes fixed. "His friend. Who's he?"

Isaac lets out a little relieved huff. "Oh, that's Derek. He's pretty okay, I guess."

"Derek WHO?" Stiles presses, because he is a stubborn little imp (according to his babysitter, Laura, who hasn't been back since Stiles asked his mom what an imp was).

"Hale," Isaac says impatiently. "From the big house on the hill. We playing?"

The first time Stiles will see Jackson, he'll take in the posture and the walk and the bored drawl and the smirk and think he's Camden all over again, but he'll be wrong.

If you look hard enough, you can find Jackson's heart.

* * *

_He'd wanted it, the first time._

_He'd found her. Eyes trailing up, down, up, like every other guy with eyes and a pulse._

_He'd played innocent. Shy. Grinned a bright white slice of teeth, made some comment._

Sorry, I-I'm a little thrown. I wasn't expecting someone so... _Blushing, ears going pink. _So incredibly beautiful.

_She knew what he saw. What he wanted._

_What every guy wanted._

_He was sixteen, and she was twenty-two, and baby was gonna get his wish._

* * *

The first time Derek sees Stiles, he's seventeen and Stiles is eleven. Derek is sitting on a folding chair in the sheriff's station, wrapped in a thin blue blanket that does nothing to stop the shivering. Stiles is a frantic, fidgeting ball of energy, swinging his legs and licking his lips and doodling on a stack of papers on his father's desk and playing with his stamp collection. His fingers are stained blue from the ink pads. Every few minutes he looks up at Derek like he's assessing the situation, summing up the story in his head. No cuffs and no guards, so he's not a suspect; wrapped in a blanket, that could be because he's soaking wet, or because he saw something awful and now he's in shock, or because he's naked. Or some combination of the above. Derek wonders how bad the shaking looks to someone who can't feel it, if he's vibrating so hard he's rising into the air or if the kid can't see him moving at all. He's wondering if the slight fuzz around his cheeks and chin is visible from where the kid is sitting. If he looks homeless. He's wondering if his eyes are frozen wide and horrified or if they're sunk low into their sockets. He half-turns, trying to see if the scar between his shoulder blades is showing. He wonders how his hair looks, because she does quick convenient buzzes every time it starts to bother her, but she hasn't in a while. She likes gathering handfuls and pulling.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.

His eyes are watering now. Shit. Bring Your Kid To Work Day is about to scar this one for life. He blinks furiously, stares at a random patch of wall, tries to think of something good.

His mom makes- used to make- makes- damnit. He doesn't know if his mom still makes lasagna, warm and spicy and gooey and smothered in cheese that leaves strings stretching from the fork to your mouth. He doesn't know if she makes anything. Maybe she stopped cooking his favorite food because she couldn't stand looking around the dinner table and seeing his empty seat. Maybe she stopped cooking altogether, just couldn't keep a brave face and stiff shoulders and a full kitchen going while her son was gone. Maybe she just took off with all of them because they couldn't stand the memories anymore, the ghost of him. Maybe they all died in a fiery plane crash that dumped their bodies out into the Pacific. Maybe-

And he's definitely crying now, small silent sobs, cheeks going hot and probably red and soaking wet. He wonders if the kid can tell- he was already shaking and soaking wet before the tears, so...

He'd seen his own face on a poster outside. It was pretty worn down, bent corners and most of the little contact tabs ripped off. He wonders what kind of people called the number. Did they hear him screaming? Did they see her buying coconut-scented candles and Marlboros and dog food and Twinkies and think, _She doesn't have a dog_? Did they just see something in her eyes, something _off_, and think, maybe...?

But they couldn't have, because she looks normal. Hot, even, if you don't know her. You wouldn't look twice, except to check her out, maybe.

So was it all prank calls, then? All time wasters, stupid kids playing jokes? While he waited, and waited, and waited, and-

He's crying again.

And the kid notices. His already wide eyes widen further, and then he's grabbing his bag and dragging it over to Derek's side.

Derek thinks of the questions probably flying around that kid's mind, of how he'll answer them. How to avoid Scarring For Life, if possible.

"Want a Yoohoo?" Stiles says. "I've got two."

Derek realizes he's never been more thirsty in his life, tongue sticking to his gums, barely enough saliva to croak a hello. He doesn't waste it. He shrugs, and the kid hands over a boxed drink, and then there's the struggle of stabbing that tiny straw into that little silver circle, which doesn't _look_ hard, but his hands are shaking and he's over-aware of the tears still drying on his face and he can't fiddle with the straw and keep the blanket tight enough around him at the same time, and he can't just let it slip, not again, not ever, not even a couple of inches. So he struggles, for a few fruitless minutes, until the kid reaches over and holds out his YooHoo, straw already inserted, and says, "Swap me?" and they switch.

They sit and slurp chocolate milk for a while, Derek clutching his blanket in place and staring straight ahead at nothing in particular, Stiles in constant motion: eyes on the move, taking in everything, constantly flickering back to Derek; legs scraping the floor, sneakers leaving rubber skid marks on the linoleum; two fingers twirling his straw.

Derek wonders if he should offer the kid a seat. A little hysterical bubble of laughter explodes from him at the absurdity. This is the sheriff's station, not Derek's house, and that's the sheriff's kid, who knows full well he can sit wherever he'd like. The kid's head flicks back toward Derek's giggle, and he births a tiny crooked grin at the sound, mouth popped slightly open, and puts his hand to the back of his neck, through his short hair.

The sheriff comes back minutes later with a pretty blonde woman who starts Derek's heart slamming against the walls of his chest; he sinks down, inches away, _no, no, nonononono_-

"It's okay," she says. Her voice is soft, firm, pleasant, professional. "You're safe now. My name's Kate, and I'm just gonna ask you a few questions, if that's okay, and take a few DNA samples. It's all very routine, nothing to worry about, and it'll only take a few minutes. If you could just follow me..." She starts walking, then pauses. Derek isn't following her. He's sunk low in his chair, blanket pulled taut around his stress-stiff shoulders, held in place by two frantically trembling fists.

"It's alright, Derek," the sheriff says, drawing a quick conclusion. "Kate's one of ours. You can trust her. And I'll be right here if you need me."

Derek stands up unsteadily, follows Kate like a man to the gallows.

* * *

_She doesn't bother restraining him anymore. He doesn't fight back._

_It's a shame._

_He used to have more spunk._

_Damn shame._

_Sooner or later he's gonna stop crying, too, and then she'll have to find a new toy._

* * *

John Stilinski fixes his eyes on his son. "You alright, kiddo?"

"What's going on? Where's she taking him?" Stiles demands, staring at the door still closing behind them.

"It's, uh," John says, regretting ever taking his son to work with him. "Sometimes people get sick," he attempts, "and they go to a doctor to see what's wrong."

"Like Mom," Stiles says, and John truly, truly hates this conversation. "Uh... yes, like your mom. Or like someone going for a check-up. The doctor looks around, in your ears and nose and mouth, to see what's making you sick."

"So Derek's sick?" Stiles asks, forehead wrinkling. He bites down on a thumbnail. "He just looked scared."

Silently, John cursed all the evil in the world for forcing him to explain things like this to his eleven-year-old son. For forcing seventeen-year-old Derek Hale to need no explanation.

"Well," John tries nervously, "Something like that. You know how sometimes, there are bad guys-" He's talking down to his kid; he's eleven, not six. But he doesn't want to spell it out. He really, really doesn't want to spell it out to his innocent eleven-year-old son.

"Dad, was Derek raped?" Stiles says, and John nearly falls over in shock.

"Where'd- where'd you hear that word, Stiles?"

"Dad," Stiles says, fixing him an are-you-kidding-me face, "I'm _eleven_. We have a TV. You're the _sheriff_. I'm not a total dumbass."

"No," John says weakly. "No, you're definitely not." Clearing his throat, he answers Stiles' question. "That's what Kate's trying to find out."

"But you think he was," Stiles says.

The sheriff sighs. "I think there's a strong probability, yes."

Stiles growls.

"Are you okay?" John asks his son. "Tell you what. After work, whatdya say we go for ice cream or something? My treat." He's being obvious and he doesn't care. Ice cream soothes the soul.

Stiles shrugs. He's not gonna turn down ice cream, but he has more pressing questions to ask.

"What's gonna happen to him? After..."

"Well, he'll give a statement," John says, "and if he's hurt he'll go to the hospital to get patched up-"

"Hurt," Stiles repeats, looking almost angry.

"Stiles-"

"Then what?"

"Well, then he'll be discharged. He'll go home."

"And that's it? What about the case?"

So they have a talk about evidence and DNA and where to go from there, how it's more complicated since they don't have a crime scene or a suspect yet, how he'd shown up near the dumpsters three blocks from here (Stiles lets out an angry little hiss at that). How John has some guesses, based on how Derek reacted to Kate and didn't seem to fear him at all.

"He's the one from the posters," Stiles says at one point, like it's all starting to fit together in his head. "But that was like a year ago."

"About eight months," Stiles' father confirms, and Stiles gapes.

"Dad!"

"We don't have to talk about this," John says. "In fact, I can't talk about this. Confidential-"

"Dad, is he gonna- could he be okay? Ever?"

The sheriff doesn't know the answer to that. He tries anyway. "It depends," he says, "on the support system around him. Family, friends, structure. Reliability."

"He needs to feel safe," Stiles says.

The sheriff nods.

"I wanna help," Stiles says immediately.

The sheriff sighs. "Stiles-"

"He's not scared of me. I gave him a YooHoo."

"A what?" the sheriff says, momentarily alarmed, and then spots the discarded boxed drink and lets out a bark of relieved laughter. "Oh. Well, that was generous of you."

"I had two," Stiles says.

Kate's back out moments afterwards, Derek trailing slightly behind her. Stiles isn't sure if he looks more terrified or if Stiles' own understanding is changing the way he sees him. Either way, he doesn't like it.

Feeling useless and miserable, Stiles digs through his backpack again, gives up, and walks to where his father is talking with Kate. "Dad, can you give Derek your jacket? Dad, c'mon, he's probably freezing. He could catch pneumonia or something. C'mon, give him your jacket. Not like it's his now or anything. Just till he gets clothes from home, okay? Dad? Daaaaa-aaad..."

Sighing, but with a small look of something like pride that more than cancelled out the sigh in Stiles' eyes, John removes his badge and hands his jacket to the shivering seventeen-year-old.

Persistent little imp strikes again.

A round of awkward maneuvering later, the jacket/blanket combo is working for Derek, but Stiles' mind is whirring on a scar he spotted on the older boy's back. It looked like a burn, almost, but it clearly said, in uneven all caps:

**SWEETIE**

Oh god, Stiles is gonna be sick.

* * *

_He's out with the trash two weeks later._

_Seventeen and used and _boring.

_She doesn't bother killing him. It's not sentiment._

_He won't tell._

_They never do._

* * *

author's notes: this is a human au. not a wolf to be found.


	2. Chapter 2

******WARNING: SERIOUS NONCON/ABUSE/TORTURE WITHIN THE ITALIC SECTIONS**

(this is a rape recovery/aftermath fic with_very_ slow building Stiles/Derek. nothing explicit, but if that's not your speed, please stop reading here.)

* * *

**HOWL **

**chapter two**

_"Please," he says, the second time, hoarse; every time his mouth opens, it fills with his own still-drying vomit. His shoulders ache, half-numb, half agony, dragged into a torturous stretch behind his back. She noses the flashlight down his spine like a game, the metal a cold sting against his still-tender burns, and he begs her to stop, to slow down, to explain, and then he's just saying ____please__ like a prayer, like he hasn't prayed since pre-school, hands clasped and completely focused, please, please stop, please just slow down, please, __please_! _He tries to like it, to relax at least, but when he starts to like it, some of it, that's worse, because she knows, because she laughs when his breathing speeds up, when he's sticky and sick to his stomach, panting into old vomit. She laughs and kisses him on the shell of one flushed pink ear, digs her nails into the still-stinging S, and lights a cigarette._

_"I was going to name you Slut," she says, lazily tracing the old burn with the new flame, "since you liked this so much, but then I thought-" she lifted off the swan curve of the first letter and went on to the next, "nah, that just doesn't fit. You're more of a Sweetie, don'tcha think?"_

x

Stiles isn't obsessed, or anything. He's not, like, lying awake all night, staring at the water stains on the ceiling, thinking about the boy in Dad's office, the word burned into his back, the fear in his eyes.

Nope. Not at all.

Stiles is very deliberately _not_ thinking about any of that.

Stiles is definitely not thinking about how that guy is Derek Hale. It's not like Stiles made a habit of going over to Isaac's every Saturday because he knew Derek would be hanging out with Camden in the Laheys' pool or shooting hoops in the backyard, or anything. Isaac's his best friend after Scott, that's all. And the Lahey's have a huge TV and, like, every video game ever. They're _loaded_. Well, not as much since the divorce, but they still have a house with it's own pool and a friggin' basketball court in the backyard, so how bad can it be?

Anyway, it's not like Stiles has never even seen Derek Hale look _sad_ before today. He was disappointed when he came third in that swim meet last year, so.

So nothing, because in Dad's office, he didn't look disappointed. He didn't look upset, or sad, or any of that. He looked like- like he wasn't even Derek anymore, okay? Like he was a completely different person, all slouched small, and shaking, and, and-

And now Stiles is definitely thinking about it, and he _can't stop_.

Most of the time, Stiles' mind is this huge whirlwind of activity, jumping from topic to topic like a live wire. It's gotten some of his teachers to make suggestions to Mom, about doctors and things like that. The school psychologist did this test where Stiles had to put on headphones and raise his hand every time he heard a beep. It was weird. But sometimes, his brain slows down and stops on one thing, and then that one thing is _all he can think about_.

Like when Mom got sick. Stiles eavesdropped, of course, because Mom and Dad were having these really intense whispered conversations in their bedroom, and Mom and Dad didn't do that unless something was _bad_, like when Stiles' turtle, Leonardo, died, or when Stiles' second-grade teacher said he needed medication. So there he was, outside their door, straining to hear their low, somber tones, and Mom said, "I know. It's probably nothing. I just-" There was a loud sniff, the kind like just before you start crying, and then she said, "I love you, Johnny. I love you so much. And I love Genim-" Stiles' real name was Genim, or his birth name, anyway, but Mom was the only one who called him that anymore- "And I think about not getting to see him grow up, or you being alone, and I-"

"That's not gonna happen," Dad said. "That's_ not gonna happen._ _Julie_. You're not going anywhere, you hear me? We'll find a doctor. We'll find a hundred doctors. You're gonna be fine."

And Stiles stood by the door, just over two weeks before his eighth birthday, and thought: Mom thinks she's going to die.

And then he couldn't stop thinking it. Couldn't stop obsessing over it. Every time she left the house, he wondered if she'd ever come back. Every time he went to school, he kept getting distracted thinking about her dying _right that second_, while Stiles' teacher droned on about something stupid, like _pesticides_. He started coming home for lunch, just eating his sandwich and drinking his Yoo-Hoo in the kitchen, where he could keep an eye on her, make sure she was still alive. And then stupid Jackass Whittemore cornered Stiles on his way home one day and tried to stop him leaving, and Stiles kicked him in the knee and threw sand in his eyes and ran all the way home, shaking with anger and terror and just a little bit of enjoyment at the thought of Jackson stumbling around like a mummy, hands outstretched, blindly groping at stuff like a total idiot. He came home to Mom on the phone with the principal, and that night Dad asked, "Why'd you do that, kiddo?"

Stiles stared at the floor and scraped the rubber sole of his sneaker against the polished wood. He could've said that Jackson knocked him to the ground and smirked at him as he kicked him in the stomach, could've shown Dad the bruises on his chest, or the scrape on his knee from the fall. He could've told him about the time Jackson shut him in a locker for telling Danny Mahealani that he liked his haircut, even though Danny didn't mind and even kind of smiled in his direction. He could've told his dad plenty of stuff, but it woudn't've been just telling his dad, it would've been telling Deputy Stilinski, too. And Dad was _intense_ in Deputy Mode, and probably would've called the school and Jackson's parents and, like, arrested Jackson, which would probably be awesome at first but then everything would get even worse, and plus Danny would never, ever smile at Stiles again if Stiles got his best friend arrested, so. So Stiles stared at the floor and tapped his fingers against his good knee and said nothing, and Dad said, "If someone's giving you trouble-"

"I just wanted to go home, that's all," Stiles said. It wasn't a lie, not really. "He was in my way."

Dad let out a little sigh and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired too, Stiles realized. Maybe sick, even. Panic lit him up like a Christmas tree. Maybe Dad was gonna die too! Oh. Oh no. Maybe they were both gonna die, and then Stiles would have _nobody_-

And with that thought, he had his first panic attack.

After Stiles figured out how to breathe again, Dad deputy'd his way through Stiles' brain until something clicked and he said, "This is about your mom, isn't it."

Stiles stared up at him, wide-eyed.

"Son, your mom's gonna be fine. She took some tests, just to be safe, but it's probably nothing to worry about."

_Probably_, Stiles thought, and stored that away to worry about until the end of time.

"C'mere," Dad said, and pulled his son into a hug. "I love you. And your mom loves you. And we're both going to be around to love you for a long, long time. Is that clear?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, and then he told his father's shirt, "Love you too. And Mom."

But he still couldn't stop thinking about it.

Mom's fine, now. There was something, but they caught it early, got it out, and now she's okay. But the fear never completely leaves Stiles' mind. It doesn't have to be cancer. Mom can get hit by a car. Dad can get hurt at work, especially now that he's sheriff. Mom's cancer can come back. No one's safe, really. People die all the time. In movies, on TV, in real life. Someone could be here one day, and the next day they're just... gone.

Like Derek Hale.

X

_The third time, she tapes it, tapes him screaming and sobbing, tapes the noise he makes as he comes, the look on his face. She plays it back for him while she burns a wide, searing E into his back. He closes his eyes and imagines being not here not here not-here._

_(He can still hear his breath catching, his long hoarse moan; he can still feel his back on fire. He still screams, and he still cries, but some part of him is not-here, is safe, protected, untouchable. It's a good part, even if the rest of him is burning.)_

x

Alice thinks she could be forever frozen in the doorway, looking at the too-tall, too-thin, too-pale, but unmistakable boy in the hospital bed before her.

Derek.

Her Derek.

He's pale enough to be a ghost, she thinks. He's thin enough that she hesitates, unsure if a hug would break him.

_Derek._

She's heard from the sheriff, where he was found, what he's been through. and she could break down crying, screaming, if she just peeled away at a corner of it.

But she's got a shift starting in less than an hour, so she has to be practical, so she's practical.

Lying in that hospital bed, he looks exactly as dead as she assumed he was months ago, only the shallow rise and fall of his chest whispering _wrong_, you were _wrong_, you gave up and he was still out there, you said goodbye and he was still waiting… You moved on, you buried him alive, shoved his still-screaming mouth full of dirt and closed the casket and said a few words and _left him_.

Your _son_.

He was always so quiet, always blending into the background. He lit up a room when he laughed, but he got no laughs of his own. Caleb, Laura, Ash, they were noisemakers. They had big personalities and strong opinions and loud voices. Derek had his smile, his easy eye, his optimism, but he was forgettable beside them. Forgettable beside loud, oversized Camden Lahey, his best friend for as long as Alice can remember. He didn't seem to mind it, most of the time; he didn't seem to mind anything, really. Derek was always easy. Easy smiles, easy laughter, easy optimism, genuine and sweet and good.

Under fluorescent hospital lights, he is very, very pale, veins dark under his skin, sweat pooling in the hollow of his throat and under his hair, and she doesn't even think; Alice grabs a tissue from the box on his bedside table and wipes it away-

He cringes away from the touch, a strangled sound trapping itself as his eyes open. They're wide and wet and Alice tries not to look too horrified, but she shoves her hands in her pockets because she's trembling and she can't stop.

"Mom?" he says. His voice is a dark chapped shadow of the one she remembers. It's not a voice that matches easy smiles. It's not a voice that matches easy anything.

Alice knots her fists in her pockets and wonders why she isn't sobbing. Eight months of crying and she's all cried out. Her eyes prickle, her hands shake, but nothing falls.

When she says, "Derek," when she calls his son by his name for the first time in eight months, it tastes wrong in her mouth. It doesn't fit under her tongue. Inside her head she's holding him and never letting go; in this hospital room she stands stiff and awkward in the doorway, hands in her pockets, shaking, wondering why her voice sounds so far away, so toneless.

"Derek," she says again, and she can't make it sound natural, can't make it sound right. She buried her son in the ground when he was still screaming, and now she can barely hold his gaze.

She doesn't know what to say. She can't even make his name sound right, how is she supposed to find the right words? She can feel the seconds tick by, feel his confusion at her behavior. She feels animatronic; she's the puppet and the unconvincing puppeteer. She nearly says his name again when he turns his face away, twists his shoulders to duck his head underneath them. She thinks, she almost thinks for a second that he might be laughing, that shoulder-shaking laugh of his, but then he takes a staggered breath, and she hears the sob that comes with it, and her hands clench and unclench in her pockets, and she feels like the worst mother there could be.

She doesn't try his name again. She takes a nervous step forward, another. "Sweetie-"

Abruptly, he turns to face her, tears still clinging to his lashes. He's suddenly furious, and she doesn't know why, she doesn't know what set him off, she doesn't know how to fix it.

"Derek-" she tries hopelessly. He turns away again.

"Where's Dad?"

She can't pretend that doesn't hurt. She's failing miserably at this, but she's trying, alright, she kept what was left of her family fed and clothed and housed, and David destroyed everything he could touch, but Derek wouldn't know that. Derek would assume his father was right.

Because he was.

Because Derek's not dead, and David had refused to give up, even when Alice said, "We have to be practical. We have five other children, David, we can't live like this." We can't keep putting up posters, taking every crazy attention-hungry conspiracy theorist's calls, follow those insane leads like they mean something. We can't harass the sheriff's department, the sheriff's wife, the school, the Laheys, the neighbors, we can't dive deep into the bottle thinking about what could have happened, what could be happening right now. We can't get so drunk that we talk to pictures of Derek we posted on tree trunks weeks ago like they can hear, like that's not insane, David. We have to look at the children we still have. Caleb never comes home anymore, David, Laura is withdrawing, her grades are slipping. Ash is starting fights in school, Aaron's being teased about his crazy drunk father and he doesn't understand any of it, can you hear me? Even Eli has questions, you're scaring him, and Damon's an infant, he needs stability, he needs a father he can count on! We can't lose ourselves to ghosts, David, we have responsibilities, and if you can't get it together I'll leave you, because our family wont survive this if you keep going this way! Derek is gone, but the rest of us are still here, and we need you to get your head together, and fast, or we need you to leave.

("Hah!" David'd said. "It's my house. If anyone leaves, it's you."

"Fine," said Alice. "We'll find a place."

"We, is it? I don't see a judge granting you full custody in this hypothetical divorce-"

"No, a qualified professional is more likely to hand off the children to a single, middle-aged alcoholic who just lost his job and his wife because he ran out of last chances."

"I am not an alcoholic! My son is missing-"

"Your son is _dead_!"

"You don't know that!"

"David, be reasonable-"

"Reasonable? Is that what you call it, you cold-hearted bitch? Just give up? Derek is out there somewhere-"

"It's been five months, David!"

"I don't care! He's not dead until I know he's dead. I will not allow my son to become Schrodinger's cat just because our incompetent sheriff would rather write tickets than do his job! I've hired someone-"

"Another PI? With what money?"

"I'll figure something out."

"You just lost your job, David, all we have is the house and the kids' college funds! Everything else is gone to one of your brilliant ideas-"

"At least I'm trying!"

"Be realistic! You're losing everyone here! And if you find him, if by some miracle you find him, David, what then? What does he come home to? We can't live like this!"

She gave him two weeks to stop drinking, to beg his job back, to salvage the situation. He flat-out refused, coiled around a bottle of Jack and wrapped his car around a pole.

So Alice left. She found an apartment for rent, she found a second job, she took Aaron and Ash and Eli and Damon and left. Laura stayed with David, Caleb went to college. His new answering machine message included the line, "Alice, I don't want to talk. Laura will fill me in if anything important happens." _Alice_. Like she was a stranger.

She feels like a stranger now, hovering by a strange Derek's bed, trying to find the words to explain the last eight months, what they'd become through a near year of pain and loss and helplessness and anger and no one to take it out on but each other.)

"Is he-" Derek swipes at his eyes. "Dad's not- Where's Dad?"

"He's, well," Alice says carefully. How do you explain the collapse of your marriage, the splintering of your family, to the inadvertent catalyst? "He's… figuring out some things."

Derek nods stiffly, face worryingly blank. "And- and everyone else?"

Alice tries to keep it light. "Caleb is in NYU. Laura went to New York too. Ash is spending some time with Peter. Aaron, Eli, and Damon are with a neighbor." Changing tactics, she tries to ease into honesty, adding, "Derek, some things might not be… how you remember them. Things change, it's a part of life, a part of growing up."

"This the part where you tell me to save my virtue for someone special?" The old Derek, the Before Derek, would never be sarcastic about something like this. Certainly not to his mother. Alice isn't sure how to react. Derek ducks his head, looks down at his arm. "Sorry," he says, and then, looking closer, "Did someone- what's this?"

"The hospital took a blood sample. To make sure, just to check, to see-"

"If I caught anything," Derek says, and again Alice is shocked and shaken by his sharp snapping tone. Ash talks like this. Derek never sounded like this. "Right."

And Alice's shift starts in twenty minutes.

Eight months begging for a hint of her son, and now she can't wait to get away from him. From the sight of him, the fact of him. And knowing she failed him, she's still failing him.

She's always been practical, been able to pull back and get things done. David could never do that. David-

Enough.

She almost bends to press a kiss to his sweaty temple on her way out. Mother's rituals. They never leave you, never. She stops herself mid-bow, thinking of terrible things, unthinkable things, her son cringing under her touch.

She's practical, so she doesn't cry until she's retching into a lemon-polish-and-urine scented toilet, two floors down.

She can't do this, she can't.

She's only human.

x

When Derek was fourteen, Drew Santos was caught using steroids and booted off the swim team. He swore up and down that he never used them, but it was all over school, all over town, and suddenly none of his medals meant anything anymore, all his times didn't mean anything. Drew started saying all these crazy paranoid things, like someone had faked the results, or put something in his food, or stuck a needle in him while he was sleeping, or something. Cam thought it was the funniest thing in the world. "No, no," he said. "That's way too crazy. It was probably aliens. Swooping in with their UFOs, fixing his test, and flying away again. Or gremlins. Those are scary motherfuckers." Cam and Derek had seen the Spielberg movie together, and both had been secretly on the lookout for evil little Furbies for months afterward. And maybe Derek might've cried a little bit when the dog was tied up in Christmas lights. But Derek couldn't laugh about Drew like Cam did. He worried. A lot.

What if Drew wasn't lying? What if the test really was wrong? Drew was the total opposite of the kind of person Derek pictured using steroids. He was good- he was really good- but he'd been so... normal. Not, like, all crazy-built and obsessed with being on top. He liked swimming, and he was good at it, that's all. Laura'd dated him for a while, eventually letting him go for pretty much the same reason Rachel had dumped Derek: too easygoing. Rachel wanted passion, apparently, wanted him to be jealous when she told him Cam had hit on her, even though Derek knew that was just something Cam did, he tested Derek's girlfriends, made sure they weren't cheaters. Rachel wanted Derek to, like, punch Cam in the face and call him an asshole, like in a movie. Which Derek wasn't going to do, obviously. So she dumped him, and Cam and Derek spent Saturday night having a Bond movie marathon and Cam said, "You totally could've punched me in the face, man. We could've, like, staged it to look like I took it in the chin, and then you could've been like, "That's for trying to steal my girlfriend, motherfucker,' all cool as ice. Chicks fucking love that, it's like pussy Kryptonite."

"Thanks, man." This was why they were friends: friends let friends fake-punch each other in the face in the name of love. Not that it was, really. Derek was starting to give up on the concept.

"I was thinking of dumping her, anyway," he offered, because he was.

"Totally should've, bro," Cam said. "Bitch was a bitch. Trying to come between a man and his best bud? That shit is fucked up. You could do so much better, it's insane. Especially now you're getting all _pretty_." Cam fluttered his eyelashes at Derek, who elbowed him in the ribs.

"Shut up."

"Whatever, dude, I'm totally nominating you for Prom Queen."

"You're a dick."

"And hey, maybe Lisa can be Prom King! You know I heard she had a dick when she was born? Like, both. And her parents made the doctors cut it off, can you imagine?" Cam winces in sympathy. "They just chopped it all off. So who's fault is it that she's a dyke? Probably the sight of cock makes her all jealous, and, like-"

"Dude, shut up," Derek snapped. "Where do you even hear this shit?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Cam put his hands up in surrender. "Shut up _and_ shit? Do you kiss your Bible with that mouth?"

Derek rolled his eyes. "I'm not that kind of Christian. Just the big stuff. Like love thy neighbor, and Jesus died for our sins, and Christmas Mass and stuff. Which you know. So shut up. And lay off Lisa, okay?"

"What'd I say? I feel bad for her, is all. Can you imagine it? Being junkless, I mean."

"Dude, all girls are junkless."

"Yeah, but they've never had junk. You can't miss what you never had."

"That's profound, man."

"Yeah, go tell Finstock how profound I am. I swear he wants me dead since you joined the swim team with me instead of lacrosse, which is like the gayest sounding sport ever, by the way."

"What's wrong with sounding gay?" Derek said. "Who cares who you like, anyway? As long as it's, like, two-sided."

"Dude, are you, like, coming out to me?"

The tips of Derek's ears went pink. "No," he said, a little defensively. "I just- it isn't right, how now that everyone knows Lisa's gay, they're being assholes, that's all."

"Yeah, okay," Cam said slowly, "But I didn't say anything bad about Lisa, did I? I'm just saying what everyone else is saying, I didn't say there was something wrong with it, I said I felt bad. Jeez, you're like Jessica or something. Here I am on a Saturday night, trying to cheer you up with 007 and fuckin', I don't know, cheer-leading for your ego, and you're jumping down my throat like I'm a fuckin' criminal."

Cam- he was a loyal friend. Derek's best friend. He was just kind of prickly. It took him a while to trust someone, a while more to care. And he was defensive, sure. And sometimes, sometimes maybe a little bit of an asshole.

But Derek figured he was far from perfect himself, and Cam had his back, and how much did a few stupid comments really matter, anyway? So he didn't say certain things- he didn't tell Cam about his weird, obsessive fear of someone slipping him steroids and getting him kicked off the team, or his few, fleeting thoughts about Drew Santos's shoulders, or how he didn't actually have a rare allergy with an unpronounceable name but actually was just paranoid about drugs in his food, how he'd woken up as a mosquito bit him and remained suspicious for a good few hours about someone sticking a needle in him. there was no reason to mention it; he wasn't even the best on the team- Cam was. And the thought of Cam laughing about his freak-show behavior kept him quiet.

X

Thursday night turns into Friday morning and Stiles lies in bed and thinks about the word _Sweetie_. His mom calls him Sweetie, sometimes. It's like "Honey" or when Dad calls Stiles "Kiddo" or when Deputy Stilinski calls someone "Son." It's not an important word. It doesn't really mean anything, even. So why is it on Derek's back? It wasn't like a tattoo, either. It was shiny and pink and blistered, like a burn. It looked like it hurt, the kind of thing that makes you hiss with sympathy just looking at it. And it's definitely from- from where he was, because Stiles'd seen Derek the week before he went missing, getting out of the Lahey's pool, and there was nothing on his back except muscles. Derek always had really nice-

But his brain kind of short-circuits, thinking of Derek like that, because in Dad's office, the way he'd looked- and what Dad said, what happened to him- Someone looked at Derek like that, and then they-

And then they. They.

So.

Stiles can't help thinking that if he thinks about that, about Derek in that way, then he's just as bad. 'Cause Derek doesn't want... _that_... with Stiles. Doesn't even know Stiles, really. Doesn't even like guys, probably. Maybe doesn't even like anyone, anymore.

Anyway, Stiles doesn't _want_ anything. Not sex, anyway. He's just starting to figure this stuff out, altogether; he's not ready for the hands-on tutorial.

So whatever. So stop thinking about Derek's muscles, stupid brain.

X

_Eight months_.

John thinks about eight months. He thinks of his son saying, "Could he be okay? Ever?" He thinks that he must have missed something, because you don't find survivors at eight months. You find bodies.

He thinks about the fucking media, the piranhas swarming this story, swarming the department, swarming their crime scene. First-page headlines shrieking conspiracy theories. Unreachable "sources." "People on the street" calling for his resignation for bungling an easy case. He thinks about what the fuck he's going to tell those leeches at the press conference, because of course there's a press conference. Derek Hale was the world's son when he went missing, and the world joined in the Hales' weeping and praying and rending of garments as time went on and what little trail there was dried up completely, so of course the world considers this their victory, and of course they're gonna celebrate it, even if that means trampling over the survivor and his family, treading over and contaminating what little evidence the department hoped to glean from the crime scene.

He thinks about Kate's photos. About the word scarred into the kid's back. At least the press didn't get their hands on that freaky detail.

_Sweetie._ What kind of sick joke is that?

He thinks: _Eight months._

He thinks, _How the hell is this kid alive?_

Did he escape? How? Was he released? Why? Why now? After so long, after he must have seen something, heard something-

Why wasn't he dead?

Where had he been, unseen, unheard, alive and- John had seen the bruises, the scars, he can't forget, someone is out there, someone did that to a sixteen year old boy, someone had repeatedly raped and starved and tortured a sixteen year old boy for eight months and then what, just let him go?

It doesn't make any sense.

It had never made any sense, how no one had a clue where he was. Parents, siblings, neighbors, best friend- no one knew where Derek Hale was. No one knew where he was supposed to be. Mrs. Hale had seen him at dinner on Friday, May 6, 2005. Asher "Ash" Hale had realized Derek was missing at 3:15 am on Saturday, but he had no idea where he could be, where he would be on a typical Friday night or Saturday morning, where he was this time.

The trail was dead, and then it was deader than dead.

And then John found a kid's body.

He stopped the car, dread lead-heavy in his stomach.

And then he realized the body was alive.

There was a blanket in the trunk of his car. The kid was naked, soaking wet and shivering, curled like he was trying to shield every part of himself at once. John got the blanket and wrapped it around him; he flinched and let out a sob and opened his eyes and it was Derek Hale.

He was bruised all over, scarred in places, so the sheriff was careful as he showed the boy his badge and gently guided him into his car. His head spun with questions, but Derek didn't look up to answering any questions at the moment, so instead, the sheriff said, "Hungry?" and, not waiting for an answer, pushed the BLT over the dashboard to Derek. Stiles would manage. Hell, Stiles adored Derek, or had eight months ago, anyway. He wouldn't mind.

Derek hesitated, eyes darting side to side, but he had a blanket tight around his shoulders, and the car was warm and not uncomfortable, and the sandwich smelled delicious and was the first he'd had in eight months, so after one last check with the sheriff, who was calling it in, he grabbed it and wolfed it down hungrily. the sheriff ended the call and chattered instead about his son.

His son who got sent home from school after some kind of altercation with the Whittemore kid who used to give Scott McCall trouble. Melissa McCall was sharp; John would offer her a place in the department if he didn't know how much she loves her job at the hospital. John still doesn't know the details of this fight. He's been pretty distracted by the discovery of the seventeen-year-old presumed-dead Hell survivor and the accompanying media shit-storm.

Eight months.

He'd attempted to get some kind of statement from Derek that day, but the kid was understandably shaken up and not up for talking about what he'd been through. Kate got the pictures and the kit- that couldn't wait- but John's put off talking to Derek until he knows everything he wants to ask. The kid's been through Hell once; he doesn't need to relive it every time John thinks of a new angle.

Julie was already heartbroken thinking about it. She'd always been... inquisitive, and now was no exception. Once John explained how Stiles had latched on to Derek, she insisted she and Stiles help Derek as much as they could. "Genim won't drop it, even if he doesn't mention it out loud," she said. "You know how he is."

Stubborn, sympathetic, nosy and nurturing, like his mother. Yes, John knows.

"And Derek needs people he can count on," she continued. "He needs to re-learn that the rest of the world isn't like where he was. That he can trust people again."

John didn't disagree, but he worried about overstepping his bounds. Derek has his own family, as screwed up as they are these days. And Stiles' safety comes first, of course. He's still a kid. He wants to help, sure, but he doesn't understand the responsibility that comes with that. Or maybe he does. Stiles is a smart kid, but he puts a lot on his own shoulders. Maybe too much.

"Sure," Julie agreed. And then she started baking cookies.

And John thought, and John thinks, and John will think:

Eight months.

X

_She leans down and licks a stripe of skin from belly to briefs; he flinches instinctively. _

_"Could you-" he tries to meet her eyes; she keeps going, lower, lower. "Just- hold on. Hold on a second, please?"  
It's not like he's- he's had sex, he isn't that kind of Christian. Just never- not like this. He knows some people do different stuff; he stumbled onto some different stuff on a porn binge at Cam's (friends let friends experience life to the fullest, parental controls on the Hales' home computers be damned)- (he isn't that kind of Christian either, the kind that never watches porn. He isn't sure what kind of Christian he is, exactly, but not that) and it was- well, it wasn't what he'd expected, anyway. And this is- it's maybe like that, except- except the back of his head really hurts, hurts so bad his eyes are watering, and he's pretty sure the cuffs in the video weren't tight enough to leave_ marks_. And he doesn't know where he is, and her mouth keeps going down, and he isn't- this isn't right, this isn't normal, and he's starting to _freak out.

_"Just. Um," he says, realizing he doesn't even know her name. "Just- shit- stop for a second, please?"  
_

_She stops, which is a relief. Derek tries to relax his shoulders and finds he can't- the zip ties hold his arms in place.  
_

_"What's the matter?" she asks, looking almost offended. Derek swallows hard. "You're a guy. Isn't this what you want?"  
_

_"Um," Derek says, wondering if he's looking at this all wrong. Cam always mocked the kind of girls Derek liked, called them "vanilla", called them "naive". Said they all wanted to find The One and get married and have a million kids and do stupid couple things and control him and then get fat and jealous and bitter and steal half his money and leave him. ("Oh," Derek said, the first time Cam made this claim, age thirteen, twelve days after (according to Laura Hale, Knower of All Beacon Hills Gossip) Mrs. Lahey moved to Atlanta and stopped picking up the phone. Then, not mentioning that, Derek said, "You like Jessica, though."  
_

_"Do not," Camden scoffed, and then, not looking at Derek, he added, "Anyway, she's different.")  
_

_S__he- whatever her name was, she isn't vanilla. She probably doesn't want any of those things. She-_

_She's smiling, the same little smile that caught Derek's eye in the first place, but it seems sharper now, feral._

_"Honey," she says, condescending, curving over him again, "Don't you like girls?"_

_"Um," Derek says, because he's still trying to work out if he's really, really turned on or really, really terrified. "I- just wait, okay? Just-" His headache is getting steadily worse. His eyes water; he makes an aborted attempt to swipe at them. His wrists remain locked painfully tight behind him. "Could you-" there's a scream building up in his lungs, panic rising from a dull throb in his stomach to a swollen lump in his throat, restricting his breathing. "Let me go?" he says around it. "My head hurts, and my wrists, and- and it'll be better if i can move, won't it? It hurts," he says again, trying to blink his eyes clear._

_She smirks against Derek's skin. Her lips are warm; she smells like coconut and cigarettes, sharp and sweet. Terror spikes in his gut._

_"Where are we?" Derek's quickly approaching frantic. "Just let me out, okay? I don't want-" He can feel a panic attack coming on. He hasn't had one of those in years. He wrestles with the cuffs. "Did you hit me with something? My head's killing me, did you-"_

_Her hands are cold against his hips, her fingers quick on his zipper._

_"Wait," Derek says desperately. With a____ snick__, his fly is open. "Wait, stop."_

_"So you do like girls after all." She reaches down._

_"Wait, wait, stop!" He can't breathe. He can't find air, can't remember how breathing works; his head swims. Somewhere in his panic, he feels her pull away, which he'd' be a lot more appreciative of if he wasn't losing consciousness._

_He comes to with his face ground into the carpet, on fire in places he didn't know had nerve endings. His screams mash against cheap, rough fibers; he tries to curl in on himself, but finds he's pinned down._

_"You're awake," she says from somewhere above and to the left of him. He can hear the knife of her grin growing sharper. "Panic attacks, huh? Sucks to be you."_

_"What do you want?" Derek grits out through a mouthful of carpet. He tries very hard not to think about what she's done, but the pain has him rocking as much as he can, and he can't stop his brain from connecting dots, and he can't stop the broken little noises he seems to be making._

_"Be nice for the guy not to fall asleep on me." She lights a cigarette; he smells the smoke. "Don't worry, you woke up just in time for the best part."_

_The hiss of flame sizzling against his bare skin has him bucking and begging; she draws an S and kisses his back, promising to be back soon._

_When she's gone, Derek turns his head sideways and vomits; it puddles under his cheek and chin, wet and sour and cold, as he shudders and swears and sobs._

* * *

a.n.: this chapter really got out of hand, so I've split it in two (chapter 3 is chapter 2, part 2). I know there's a lot of disturbing stuff in this chapter, so please tell me if there's something I can do to make my warnings better.

next time: Stiles and his mom visit Derek in the hospital, Derek goes home... sort of, Alice Hale makes a decision, and Derek tries to deal.


	3. Chapter 3

**HOWL **

**chapter three**

_He screams and screams. Nobody comes._

_So he runs._

_He's running, running blindly, and he's not the thing on the floor, the disgusting thing being held down and fucked and set on fire, he's not the thing that gets hosed down till it's shivering so hard it's teeth chatter, not the thing on the floor, choking on carpet and vomit and blood, waiting for her, because it hates her, but it also, it also needs-_

_He's not the thing that needs her cold smooth hands and her toys and her_ _mouth-_

_He's not, he's not, he's not._

_He's screaming. _

_He's running. _

_He's not even here._

* * *

Even before he rings the bell, the smell of freshly-baking cookies hits Stiles like a delicious slap in the face.

_Crap_, he thinks.

Then he thinks, _Smells like chocolate chip. Maybe the kind with M&Ms instead of just plain chocolate._

Then, _Focus, Stiles. This is not good._

His stomach growls, leading him to wonder if Mom will let him have a cookie before he eats his sandwich.

_Ugh, I'm gonna go straight to bad-kid Hell._

He presses his ear to the door.

_As I suspected!_

He lets himself in and marches to the kitchen, where Mom is pulling yet another batch of cookies out of the oven.

"Stiles!" she says, looking for a place to put down the tray. The entire kitchen is overwhelmed with enough goods to rival Bite Me, Beacon Hills' most popular bakery. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Over Judas Priest? I wonder why."

"It's not _that_ loud," Mom says. "Is it?"

"It's fine," Stiles says, snatching a cookie from the tray perched on a nearby chair. "What's wrong?"

"What?"

"I said, what's wrong?" Stiles repeats slightly louder as his mother turns down the music. "C'mon, Mom, you're stress-baking. And you're listening to your aggressively chill mix tape."

"My-"

"Judas Priest, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, that one Moby song with the talking at the beginning of it, The Beatles, The White Stripes, The Mountain Goats," Stiles ticks off on his fingers, "Neutral Milk Hotel, The Magnetic Fields. All the bands that make you happy. All at once. Plus, you made more cookies than I've ever seen in my life. What's wrong?"

"Oh, honey, it's nothing," Mom says. "I've just been-"

"Are you sick again?" Stiles asks in a rush. "I swear I won't ever get in another fight with Jackson Whittemore if you're not sick again. Or forget to do my homework. Or-"

"Baby, I'm not sick." Mom puts the tray back in the oven and gives Stiles a hug. "I've just been thinking about some things, that's all. What was that about fighting with Jackson Whittemore? That wouldn't have anything to do with why you were sent home from school yesterday, would it?"

"He's an asshole," Stiles says.

"Language, Genim."

"Sorry. He's still telling people Scott's dad left because- Whatever. It's a stupid old rumor. He's just a jerk."

"Scott's father left because Melissa has her head on straight," Stiles' mother says firmly. "What has Jackson been saying?"

Stiles sighs, takes another cookie. "Last year everyone was saying how Scott's dad left because Scott's not his. Or something about Scott's mom. Jackson's just the only one who still won't shut up about it." He shrugs and adds, "So I punched him."

"You _punched_-"

"He didn't get a bruise, or anything," Stiles amends quickly. "He just started whining about his dad's lawyer. He's not even any good at being a bully. It's embarrassing, really." The cookies _are_ the kind of chocolate chip with M&Ms instead of just plain chocolate. Stiles wonders if he can get away with a third. He's intercepted mid-grab.

"Genim Stilinski," Mom says, pulling the nearest tray of cookies out of reach. "I'm proud of you for defending Scott, but you can not punch your classmates. No matter how awful they are to your friends."

"It's not like I just go around punching people," Stiles says, slightly defensively. "He just thinks he can treat people like sh- like trash and no one ever does anything about it. He's like Camden Lahey in training, only less subtle, and a moron."

"Camden Lahey," Stiles' mother repeats. "Isaac's brother? Derek Hale's friend?"

Stiles starts at the mention of Derek. "What? Uh, yeah. Derek's not a jerk, though. Um. Wasn't. I mean, he's like Danny-"

"Danny Mahealani, that boy you like," Mom says.

"Mo-om! I don't _like_- yeah, fine," Stiles says. His mother knows him too well. "Anyway, Danny is Jackson's best friend, but he's actually cool and friendly and no one really understands why they're friends. It's like that." Now that his mother has brought it up, Stiles asks, "How is he? Derek, I mean. People were talking about him at school, about Dad finding him. It was in the paper, like a big paper, not the Gazette. But they couldn't get an interview or anything, obviously, so everyone's just saying crazy stuff. He's still in the hospital, right? Are they- is he talking? 'Cause in Dad's office, he wasn't talking at all, he was just-" Stiles stops, says, very quickly, "y'know. Crying, and stuff." His eyes widen. "Does he know about his house? Oh my god. And Ash getting kicked out? And his _dad_? Oh my _god_."

Mom's eyes flicker to the clock on the wall. "Why don't we go eat lunch before you have to head back to school," she says. They eat in the dining room, at the long, fancy, shiny wood table they hardly ever eat at outside of holidays. Stiles unwraps his BLT and extracts the wilted lettuce. Mom pulls a salad out of the fridge, doles out two portions.

"People are saying really sh- really horrible stuff about him," Stiles says, mouth full of BT. "Isaac says Cam's stomping around being even worse than usual 'cause he thought he'd be the first one to know if they found Derek and he's like the millionth." Stiles rolls his eyes. "Which is so stupid 'cause he wasn't even the first person to notice that Derek was _missing_."

"No," Mom says with sudden clarity, fork frozen inches from her mouth. "That was you, wasn't it."

"I don't know if I was the _first_," Stiles says humbly, "but Cam didn't even notice 'till me and Isaac asked him where Derek was. Some friend, huh? If I went missing, Scott would totally notice. Or Isaac. Plus they hang out every Saturday, or," he amends, "they did, before. So how didn't he notice?"

"I don't know," Mom says thoughtfully. "Does your dad know this?"

"Yeah," Stiles says, finishing his sandwich and going for another cookie. "Me and Scott and Isaac went to Derek's house after Cam said he didn't know, and we talked to Ash, and Ash went to Dad when no one knew where he was."

"Why didn't he go to Sheriff Argent?"

"That guy's scary, Mom. Like pee-your-pants scary." Stiles shivers. The former sheriff probably didn't even have to say anything to bad guys, they probably just confessed to everything once he looked at them. Plus he doesn't like kids. Everyone knows the old sheriff hates kids. That's why he didn't even care that Derek was gone until it was too late. This is all his fault, if you ask Stiles. If Dad had been sheriff eight months ago, he would've found Derek in ten minutes, probably. But he was just deputy back then, and Derek was gone for eight months, and now kids at school are saying what must've happened to him, and Stiles really, really wishes he could think about _anything else_, but he can't. Because he saw Derek yesterday, and he _was_ beat up, and he _was_ crying, and his back said Sweetie and nobody mentioned the Sweetie thing but the other stuff matched and Stiles wants to punch something, or give Derek a hug, if he wants one, or hot cocoa or cookies or something.

Oh!

"Mom," Stiles says hurriedly, practically sparking with excitement, "What're you gonna do with all these cookies? Most of these cookies," he corrects, because he's generous, not a saint.

"I haven't decided yet," Stiles' mother says, taking in the overwhelmed kitchen. "I guess some will go to neighbors, and the station, and my students, but even then, there's a lot left over."

"How about the hospital?" Stiles suggests, subtle as ever. "Like, 'Sorry you're sick, have a cookie,' or 'Mazel Tov on your new baby, you must be hungry,' or maybe, y'know, if there's a kid who probably hasn't had cookies in a long time, so, that person might also want some cookies, maybe."

Mom smirks. Stiles' heart sinks. Okay, he's never been awesome at subtlety. But then she smiles and gives him another hug. "I love you, Genim Stilinski. Did you know that? You should know that."

"Love you too," Stiles says. "So does that mean-?"

"Yes. Definitely," his mother says, and musses his short hair.

"Mo-om!" he whines, batting her hand away and ducking out of reach. "I have to go back to school after this!"

"Sorry, sweetie," she says. "I'll call the hos- what's wrong?"

Stiles has gone still and wide-eyed. He shakes his head thoroughly and says, "Can you not call me that anymore? I don't- Just don't say that word. Please," he tags on the end, because she suddenly looks horrified, and he doesn't like that at all.

"Genim," she says carefully. "Did you see- What is it about that word, can you tell me-"

"It's on his back," Stiles says, just above a whisper. "Like a burn, all blistered and _horrible_. Why would someone do that, Mom? And he's not even- he didn't do anything wrong!"

"Oh, sw- Oh, Genim," Mom corrects herself quickly, pulling him in for another hug. "Baby, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." She leads him to the couch, where she wraps an arm around his shaking shoulders. "There are a few very sad people in the world, and they think that making other people sad too will make them happy. That's why there are people like your father, to keep the rest of us safe."

"But he wasn't," Stiles says shakily. "He wasn't safe, I saw him. Someone _hurt _him. Someone _burned_-" He has to stop to swallow the lump in his throat, swipe at his eyes with his sleeve. "Why Sweetie? It doesn't even mean anything. It's just- It's not_ fair_," Stiles insists. "He was always nice to everyone, okay, and stupid Cam- Nobody ever hurt Camden Lahey, no one even- It's not _fair_."

"I know," Mom says, rocking him gently. He hiccups against her shoulder. "I know, I know. But he's safe now."

"Who did it?" Stiles asks, accepting a box of tissues from his mother. "They're still out there, whoever did it, right? How's Dad gonna find them?" His eyes widen. "What if they take him _again_?"

"Genim-"

"I'll kill them," Stiles swears, suddenly furious, his balled-up tissue clenched tight in his fist. "Anyone tries to mess with him again, I'll kill them. Just try and see."

"Genim," his mother says. "That's very... admirable, but-"

"It isn't fair," Stiles says stubbornly, shredding another tissue over his lap. "People messing with people who never did anything wrong."

"No," his mother agrees. "It really isn't."

* * *

_They met at Jess's party, or just outside the party, anyway. He didn't know if she was an actual guest, or if he'd just caught her passing by. Or bumped into her, really- he was nervous, worried that Lisa would be inside, glaring at him, which- she said she wanted to be friends, and Derek knew what that meant, it meant "I'm going to ignore you if I see you and everything is going to be really awkward because I only had sex with you to know for sure if I'm a lesbian", but it didn't mean "I'm going to glare at you all the time like it's your fault I like girls." (And it was _not_. Derek had looked it up on one of Cam's computers and gotten some really interesting videos and a bunch of blogs and things about gay rights, so he knew she just was, and he hadn't- just been really bad at it and turned her off guys, or anything.) But she kept glaring at him whenever he saw her, and it made him worry about it, about why she hated him, and last Monday morning he'd waited for her at her locker, getting all nervous but wanting to just pull off the Band-Aid, and noticed that someone had written DYKE on it in Sharpie, and looked around frantically for a way to cover it up, or clean it off, and then she was there, looking at him and her locker and back at him, and then blinking hard and saying, "You're such an asshole. Every-oh-" _

_She took a jagged breath and said, "Everyone thinks you're such a nice guy, but you know what I think? I-I-" her voice caught; she glared harder. "I think you're a fucking sociopath. A giant fucking- at least with Cam you know to expect it, but you-" _

_"__I didn't-" Derek said, horrified. "This wasn't me, I swear-"_

_"__Go to Hell." Lisa let out a little sob and shoved past him, shoulders shaking, and Derek watched her go, not entirely steady himself, and-_

_Jess was a friend of Lisa's, so Derek had been hesitant about going, but Cam insisted he had to get back on the horse, _c'mon man, it'll be fun_. Mainly Derek had agreed to go because for all his speeches, Cam had liked Jess since pretty much ever, and bros supported each other in times of need. That's how it works- you let me punch you in the face in the name of love, I watch you and Jess dance around each other for freakin' eternity, someday someone helps someone else bury a body. _

_But agreeing to being a glorified wing-man and actually going in to a house where your ex and all of her friends think you're Satan are two very different things, so Derek had waved Cam on with a "give me a minute, man, you go ahead" and thought very hard about why having a panic attack for the first time in five years was not an option, and then thought about beer, and then the possibility that every girl in the house would be glaring at him at once, and then he took a few steps backwards, and realized he had bumped into something, and whirled around, stammering "S-sorry, sorry-" and then saw- _

_Her._

_She put fire under his skin, heat crawling down low, made him breathless just looking at her, and so he gathered up his courage and hit her with a smile and a compliment, and she was different than the others, he could feel it. She was-_

_A crazy person, it turns out she's a crazy person, it turns out she likes hurting him, which Derek can't understand, won't, turns out she-_

_She-_

_Turns out he's been knocked out and he wakes up sore in ways he didn't know were possible, Turns out he, he, he can't move, turns out he's nowhere, or somewhere closer to nowhere than somewhere he knows, and he can't leave, he can't-_

_Turns out she likes when he-_

_And it's not even that bad, after the first time, after the first few times, once he knows what's coming, it's not even that bad, because it's just sex, okay, nothing wrong with that, even if she, even if she-_

_She doesn't answer any of his questions. she doesn't ever say why-_

"_Maybe they haven't noticed you're gone yet," she offers, and the thing is, the thing is maybe they haven't. Because Derek is quiet, and boring, and forgettable, and maybe everyone just, just forgot. About him. So maybe, maybe he's just stuck here, because he doesn't know what to do, he can't find a way out, and she'd know if he was even trying, she'd-_

_She tells him how long its been every day, enjoying it. Enjoying the look on his face when she explains that if anyone was gonna show up, they would have. _

_He's an optimist. he's always been an optimist. Laura was a pessimist (or "realist", as she called it) and Caleb wavered between the two, but Derek always had a sunny outlook, glass half full, all that. _

_That didn't change right away. He hoped, dreamed of being found, of being saved, of thinking up an amazing innovative escape plan. but no one came, and he'd never been amazing or innovative, he'd just been… Derek. ordinary, boring Derek, who appreciates creativity but just… doesn't have any of his own. _

_And she, she got bored. _

* * *

Derek wakes up to new needles in his arm, a platter of cookies on his chest of drawers, and a commotion in the hall.

"I'm sorry, but Mr. Hale isn't up for visitors," a male voice says, calmly but slightly impatient.

"Mr. Hale?" an unfamiliar voice snarls. "_I'm_ Mr. Hale, you moron! No visitors," he spits. "But you let my bitch ex-wife see him, didn't you?"

"Sir, please calm down-"

"She may have custody of the others, but she's got no fucking say on this one!"

Dread floods Derek's stomach, sinks through his spine. His dad would never, ever sound like that. But his mother, he never would've thought she'd be the way she was, afraid to look him in the eye, afraid to touch him. He's starting to think he... broke her, maybe. That something happened while he was- while he was gone, and now nothing is right at all. The whole world is different, his family is different. His mom is scared of him, and his dad is-

"Let me see my son, goddamnit!" There's a thud as Derek's father pushes past whoever was standing in his way, comes to a staggering, skidding stop by his bed.

"Derek," Derek's dad says. "Oh, God, Derek."

His lower lip trembles, his eyes go bright, and he bursts into tears.

Derek has maybe never been so terrified in his entire life. Even when she- there were certain things he knew even then. Certain things he could count on even then. Derek's father didn't cry. Ever. The whole wide world could go up in flames, and Derek's dad would still be strong, and capable, and he'd know what to do.

And he definitely, definitely wouldn't cry.

Derek knew, he just knew his dad would be the one to find him. If not the sheriff, then his dad. And he'd say, "You're okay, Derek," and he'd pull Derek into a bear hug, strong and secure, and Derek would finally, finally know he was safe.

Watching his dad cry, thinking of his dad ranting in the hall, he starts to think that he might never feel safe again.

Did he- Derek's breath hitches in his throat. Did Dad say _ex-wife_?

Derek's parents love each other. He knows they do. Ash groans, Caleb shields his eyes, Laura whines that their affection is "So embarrassing, oh my God. Mom, Dad, I love you, but I don't want to _see_ that." Aaron and Eli cover each others eyes or run for the exit or whine until, reluctantly, Mom and Dad separate, grinning goofily.

Derek's parents love each other. Derek's parents would never in a million years get divorced.

A migraine spins through Derek's skull, settles. Dad's still crying.

Everything is wrong, Derek thinks. Everything that could possibly be wrong is wrong.

Everything was good before, and now everything's wrong.

Because of him.

Oh god, oh god, this is all his fault. He waited for someone to find him, he didn't find a way out himself, and meanwhile-

James Bond never waits to be rescued. James Bond doesn't think "me, me, me" and _fuck everything up_.

Or any of the people in movies, they figure it out themselves. He could've, he could've-

But here his brain hits a wall, because he can't think of anything. He still can't think of any way he could've stopped her, or gotten away. He can't think of anything, and his mom is afraid of him, and his dad is _crying_, and his parents are _divorced_.

Cam's parents are divorced. Cam's mom went to Atlanta with her personal trainer and stopped picking up the phone, and Cam's dad got angry all the time and bitter and Cam and his dad went around saying awful things about his mom, and Derek felt sorry for him, because he _knew_ his parents would never turn into that.

Derek doesn't want to have to pick a side. Cam didn't have a choice, 'cause his mom just took off, but Derek doesn't want to have to pick. And he doesn't want to have to hear his dad call his mom awful things, or his mom-

Oh god, oh god. Derek's head spins.

Dad's saying things, half-comprehensible things, words half-swallowed by his thick sobs. He smells sour, like a teenager at a party, or a homeless person, all drunk and sweaty.

"I told her you were alive. I knew you were alive. I told her! I wanted to keep looking! I wanted new people on the case, fresh eyes! Shhhhee, shhhee wanted me to move on. While, while you were alive! I said, I said, I said, not Schrodinger's cat! No siree, not my son! I just knew. In my heart, y'know? M'chest. I said, I would know if he was dead, I'd _know_. I kept looking for months, and the heartless bitch left me. Took my goddamned kids, all of them. My lawyer, I'mma sue my lawyer so bad when I get some- She sent Ash away! Losing one kid wasn't enough for her! I said, I'll take him! He's my son! But no, nononononono, you have one little incident and suddenly Peter is a better option. _Peter_. My little brother is a better father for my children? Hah! Where was Peter in all of this, tell me? In his little fairy bakery, wasn't he? Decorating some cupcakes, was he? I looked! I didn't just give up!"

Derek closes his eyes, swipes at the bags underneath. He's still sore all over, he's got needles in his arms, and everything is wronger than he ever could've guessed.

He fakes sleep, and then he must fall asleep, because he wakes up again, mouth tinged with the taste of his own blood from his bit tongue, head full of half a nightmare, wispy details sticking while the others disappear, leaving him horrified and terrified and trembling and soaked in cold sweat. The more he tries to remember, the less he can, which is just fine with him. He remembers enough of real life.

His mouth is very dry. He presses the call button hesitantly.

Mom wanted to stop looking, Dad said. She thought he was dead and she stopped looking. How could- that can't be true.

Can it?

Why would Dad lie?

Mom wanted to stop looking for him. Mom was afraid of him, treated him like-

Like a ghost.

_Maybe,_ Derek thinks hysterically, _she actually thinks I'm a ghost, or a zombie. That I came back from the dead, like Jesus. But she's not in awe or worshiping or anything, she just won't look at me, or touch me. _

_She'd be happier, maybe, if I was dead._

The thought is so horrifying that he actually says, "No," out loud, to the nurse answering the call. _No,_ he thinks, no, that can't be right.

But he can't shake it, the thought that maybe-

The nurse checks his needles; he's been pulling them out in his sleep. He's never liked needles, or trusted them. Especially after Drew Santos got kicked off the swim team. Which is stupid, but knowing it's stupid doesn't stop him from worrying.

"Look," says the nurse, pointing out the platter of cookies. "Mrs. Stilinski made some cookies. I've been reliably informed by trustworthy sources that these have M&Ms instead of regular chocolate chips, and are far superior."

Derek likes this nurse. He likes how she doesn't talk down to him, or cry, or anything. She just looks at him like he's normal. He doesn't want her to touch him, or anything, but it's good, someone treating him like a normal person.

"Thanks," he says shyly. "What's your name?" he asks, and flushes, can feel the tips of his ears going pink. He hates that he does that. Guys aren't supposed to blush, he's pretty sure.

"Melissa," says Melissa.

* * *

_She gets bored quickly._

_She gets tired of ordinary, and he's stopped asking questions, because she doesn't answer anyway, so what's the point? He just keeps quiet while she- he just, he shakes because he can't not shake, but he tries- he tries to slow her down, to make it good, maybe if he makes it good she'll-_

_But then she gets bored, and then-_

_He doesn't hold back the screams because he's never had a reason to, because maybe someone will hear, maybe- _

_He says, "What are you doing?" he says, "You're hurting me," he says, "Stop, stop, please, I don't want-"_

_She grins at him, that same grin, crazy hollow empty grin, and says, "I know."_

_And she doesn't stop._

* * *

Sometime in this jumble of a day, Derek thinks, _I should call Cam_.

Camden Lahey. His best friend. His bro for life. Shouldn't he? Even just to say, "Hi." Even just to say, "I'm not dead after all." Even just to say nothing, just to have someone who isn't- who isn't his mom, who won't just stare like he's a ghost and stay far away and say his name like he- who isn't family at all, because he can't-

But dread fills him every time he considers it, freezes him in place. What if- what if Cam's broken, too? What if everyone is wrecked and ruined, if Derek destroyed everything?

This isn't how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to be rescued. He dreamed about it for months: he was supposed to be wrapped up and brought back and given a hero's welcome, and his whole family was supposed to surround him, crying but smiling and saying_ I'm sorry we didn't find you sooner, we did everything we could, none of us slept, we turned the place upside down, oh Derek, thank God you're back home! _

He doesn't want Cam to see him like this, anyway. He doesn't want to freak him out, to make him think about where he's been.

He doesn't want to think about where he's been.

The hospital psychiatrist pays him a visit between jello and cookies and vomiting because his body can't handle so much food after so long with so little.

He's a little heavyset in a dragged-out way, like his skin is slightly too big for him. Clipboard in hand, glasses perched on his nose, he's a living, breathing cliche. The kind of person you'd find under "psychiatrist" in the dictionary, probably.

"Eight months," the shrink says, hiking his glasses up his nose, "that's an unusual amount of time in these cases." His glasses are rectangular with rounded corners. Frameless. One of the beads is missing, the one on the left. That's why he's constantly pushing them back up him nose with his index finger. He should get it fixed, or buy new glasses. This pair doesn't look expensive. Aren't shrinks supposed to be rich?

He's waiting for Derek to speak, and he's gonna have to keep waiting, until forever, because Derek knows one thing_. _Whatever is going on with his family, whatever comes next, Derek knows that. He can still feel her fingernails digging into his burn, still taste vomit in the back of his throat. There are parts of him that have scabbed over, parts of him that he's sure will never stop bleeding, and he knows he's been documented, he knows that the hospital and the Sheriff have every scar and bruise and burn on file, but that's not his fault. She can't blame him for that.

She can't, she can't.

Right?

* * *

_He thought, he thought maybe, after what she'd said on the phone, that she'd be different. After what she said, crying, fingers through his hair._

_But now she curls a hand over his ear, bites down hard on the lobe. He screams, and she laughs, and gives another little tug, fingernails digging into the half-numb burn between his shoulders._

_"You're not getting out, honey," she says, and he believes her. It's been too long. He's just lost, he's just hers, she's gonna hurt him until she finally kills him, that's all. _

_But she says, warm breath leaving condensation on his skin, "I'm letting you go."_

_No, no no no. He can't get his hopes up again, fall for one of her stupid tricks again. But she sounds absolutely serious, and he can't help it. He hopes._

_He's always been an optimist._

_He's always been an idiot._

_"Once more with feeling," she laughs, and starts again, doesn't stop until he's sobbing. "A little reminder while you're away," she says. "You're mine, Sweetie. You know that, don't you?"_

_He nods, frantic, and she pets the bruises just hard enough to have him screaming again. _

_She says,"That's right. And I can always take you back."_

* * *

He finally goes home on Friday night, shielded from the sea of cameras by Melissa and his mother. "They should be ashamed of themselves," Mom seethes. "Making every part of this Hell worse with their slander and lies. Where were they when we tried to get the word out? It took them weeks to care, and by then..."

_By then,_ Derek thinks dully, _you'd given up on me._

They take Melissa's car, because Mom's is in the shop. Derek doesn't bother asking about Dad's. If his behavior in the hospital proved anything, it's that David Hale does not belong behind a wheel.

When the cameras are far behind and Derek is near-comfortable, shielding the still-sensitive parts of himself from the bumps and potholes of the road, he realizes they're not going home.

At least, not the home he knows.

"Where are we going?"

"Remember how I told you some things would be different?" Mom asks carefully. Everything is careful now, walking on eggshells. He could scream. He doesn't, though, because his throat is shredded from eight months of nothing but. "Well, we don't live in the house you remember anymore."

"It's Dad's house," Derek realizes. Of course. Dad- the dad that Derek knew- would never live alone in a huge house while Mom and everyone else had to find somewhere else to stay, but that dad doesn't exist anymore, apparently. This dad, who curses and shoves nurses and calls Mom a bitch and cries, probably found it funny.

But as seems to be the pattern, it's worse than that. It's worse than Derek could ever guess.

"It's no one's house now," Mom says bitterly.

"Alice-" Melissa starts. Mom ignores her.

"He burned it down," she says. "He said, 'If I can't have it, you can't either,' and he burned it down. Our _house_. The absolute lunatic. He wasn't even drunk for once."

"Alice!" Melissa begs, indicating Derek, who can'tcan'tcan'tcan'tcan't listen to this anymore, to any of it. Everything is wrong, and everything is his fault, and he _can't_-

"I'm sorry, Derek," Mom says. "We'll manage. We've always managed. We don't need him."

Derek stops listening.

* * *

Mom's new place is a tiny rented apartment with a tiny, drippy shower and nowhere for Derek to sleep. Aaron is awkward and fumbling and wide-eyed, and Alex and Damon don't remember him at all.

Derek tries to take a long, hot shower, to finally get clean, (he feels like he might never be clean) but the water is lukewarm at best and closer to a light drizzle than the pressure he needs, and he needs searing heat, he needs to scrape her off him, he needs to drown. All he manages instead is to jerk off thinking of her and clean himself up feeling worse than ever. He's startled, too, by how pale he is, his skin shedding dirt he'd accepted as his natural tone. After, he stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, gets to know his face for the first time in eight months.

He's pale in patches, except where he's a vicious scrubbed pink, a bruised purple, yellow, green. He peels scabs and watches them bleed; there's an odd kind of enjoyment in it, not the momentary pain, but the sense of accomplishment once the skin is ripped clean off, once he's bleeding and exposed but wearing one less layer she touched. He twists his head to find his burn, does three full circuits, a dog chasing his own tail, before giving up on the venture. His other, smaller burns are white and barely visible, shiny and pinched but small enough to miss if you don't know where to look for them.

His face is bruise-free. Some zits, weird black-dotted ones he's never had before, and deep purple bags under his eyes, and of course his eyes are red and raw from all the goddamned crying, but if he only counts his face, he looks almost normal. His hair is a mess. He has no idea what to do with it. Eight months ago, he had bangs, but now he just has a grown-out buzz, and he has no idea what people do with their hair at this length. Part? What kind? Gel? He doesn't have any, and anyway, he doesn't want to cake it on so he has some weird pointy horn of hair, and he's pretty sure any serious attempts at styling will only end in failure, so he just buzzes it all off, gives himself the same cut she used to give him. He looks okay, he thinks. Maybe like a recovering cancer patient, or one who has stopped chemo, but he's pulling it off, he hopes.

It's stupid that after all this, he still cares about things like style and looking decent, but he just does. He's still sixteen-

No, he isn't, actually, he realizes. He's seventeen. Has been for months.

_Happy birthday to me._

He doesn't feel older except for how he feels a million years older, how everything before her doesn't even feel like him anymore. He's a different person, he thinks. Older. More tired. Less of a stupid naïve idiot, hopefully.

Dinner is boxed mac n' cheese, bright orange and powdery, which Derek has never eaten in his life. His mom loves her homemade meals, her family recipes and fresh ingredients. But that was before, Derek guesses, when she could afford all of that. It's not bad, anyway. It's just different. It's a long way from Mom's lasagna, but he's hungry, and it's a hell of a lot better than anything _she's_ ever given him, except when she was feeling especially charitable.

He still vomits most of it in the toilet within the hour. His stomach still hates food, hates him.

_Join the club,_ he thinks.

At night, he lies on a heap of blankets in lieu of a spare bed, and tries to sleep.

He wakes up screaming, in a panic, tears in his eyes, at four in the morning, and lies there, propped up on his arms, gasping, trying to remind himself that she's not around. It wakes Damon, who mirrors him, wailing and waking everyone else; Mom is scary in a way Derek can't understand. She lets Damon cry and tries to comfort him, but he can't talk to her when he just saw her with her hands around his throat-

Everything is wrong, and everyone is wrong, and he's the wrongest, because she reaches out to touch him, careful, tentative, and he cringes out of reach.

She doesn't try again.

She goes outside for ten minutes, comes back stinking of cigarettes, of _her_. And of course she smokes now. Of course. And Derek can't, he just can't. His burn itches like a reminder. He doesn't fucking need a reminder.

In the morning, there's oatmeal and a decision: Derek is going to stay with Peter for a while.

* * *

"Explain it, at least," Melissa says. "Make it clear that this isn't his fault. Make sure he knows he didn't do anything wrong. Make sure he doesn't think he's not wanted. Make sure he knows you love him."

She's right. Melissa is always right. Except in her choice of men, but he's gone now, and good riddance. Alice knows she'll have to be careful. She doesn't want to hurt him.

But everything seems to set him off, the most innocent and ordinary occurrences horrifying or terrifying or disgusting or angering him, or worse, making his face go panic-blank, his posture stiff. She never knows what it is, what set him off, and he won't answer, won't even look her in the eye. She leans in to hug him and he cringes; she steps back, alarmed and concerned, and he stares back at her, looking wounded, looking too young and too old and so unfamiliar. He's not the Derek she raised; he bears a passing resemblance, like a cousin, or an estranged sibling. It makes her feel like she was right when she gave up, like the Derek on those posters is dead, and now she's being saddled with the care of an unconvincing doppelganger, and she hates herself for feeling this way, but she can't shake it. She tries her best anyway- to say the right thing, do the right thing- but everything has him looking at her like she slapped him, like she's hurting him, and its too much, she's only human. She can't have him around, can't walk on eggshells, always doing the wrong thing, not if she's needed to work two jobs and care for three children besides him, to handle David, who he is now, who she is now. It's too much. It's too much. She's seen Derek cry, she's heard him scream, wake up at four in the morning and lay in bed and sob, and she wants to comfort him, but he won't let her, and she doesn't know how anymore.

Of course, Julie Stilinski thinks she knows better. She takes Alice out for coffee between shifts. Alice doesn't care much for Julie or her husband, but she'll take expensive coffee that she's not paying for, certainly.

"I don't have the energy or resources to care for Derek right now," Alice explains, draining her second cup. Not that she has to defend herself to this woman. Melissa may count her as a friend, but Alice does not. Julie is a nosy, judgmental know-it-all with nothing better to do than criticize. "My two jobs barely cover the rent, food and clothing for myself and my three boys-"

"Four boys," Julie snaps, like Derek's personal knight in shining cashmere. Alice isn't having it. "My three boys," she repeats. "Aaron is in shock. Alex is two years younger than your son. Damon is eighteen months old. They don't understand any of this. They lost their brothers and sister and their father and now-"

"And now Derek's back!" Julie says. "After eight months of god knows what, he's _back_. He's safe! And you're just-"

"Not _just_. Never just," Alice protests defensively. The absolute _nerve_ of this woman. "This isn't easy for me, this is- He's not himself. Nothing I do is right. and I know he's hurting, I know, he's my son, I can feel his pain like my own, but I have three young children at home, and they- His uncle has agreed to take him in for now, at least until I can figure out how to make this work. I want this to work, I just- There are a lot of factors you don't understand-"

"Here's what I do understand," Julie says, and launches into the kind of speech Alice wouldn't even have accepted from a preacher, back when faith was easy as breathing. She waves a half-eaten croissant for emphasis. "Your seventeen year old son was found after eight months of hell and he just came home to the realization that not only has everyone stopped looking for him, but his own family is in pieces, and whats left of it wants him gone because he's too much of a burden. What I understand is what eight minutes of that kind of hell can do to a person, never mind eight months. The kind of fear, the kind of hopelessness that doesn't let up just because you got out. His kidnapper is still out there-"

"And whose fault is that?" Alice snaps, but her eyes glitter. "You talk big about giving up the search, but you gave up long before we did. David was out there every day, putting up flyers, talking to people, damn near doing his own investigation. We hired a PI, we made our own tip line, David offered a reward we couldn't possibly afford. He didn't care, he just wanted Derek home. I just wanted Derek home." Others may be quick to shaft all blame on former sheriff Argent, but Alice isn't with them.

"But now-"

"But now David burned down our fucking house. Laura said he wasn't even drunk. She came home to my ex-husband stone-cold sober, the house on fire all around him. She cashed in her college fund to send him to rehab, and this is how he repays her. We have no house, Ash is between schools for giving another teenager a head injury, Caleb will only talk to Laura, and Laura won't talk to me. I've got bills I can't pay with two jobs and I have a toddler, an eight year old, and a nine year old who need care while I'm at those jobs. I don't have the time to stand over Derek and give him everything he needs. I'm only human." She sighs, levels with the woman. "It won't help Derek to watch what's left of us come completely undone, do you understand that? Peter will be good for him, and I'll visit when I can. We need this right now."

"Where will he go to school?" Julie presses on.

"School? At this point I'd be surprised to see him out of bed! I cannot do this, Julie. I'm only human," Alice repeats. "Peter is the best choice. He's the only choice." And with that, she takes her danish to go and leaves Julie to finish her latte alone.

* * *

"_They're glad you're gone, you know," she says, the fourth time. Derek stares at the ceiling, hates her, hates her, hates her. "Why do you think they haven't found you? They've stopped looking."_

"_You don't know anything," Derek mutters, watching a spider chase a fly around the light bulb. _

"_He's alive!" She laughs, delighted. She's scarily pretty when she laughs, like there's nothing wrong with her at all. But Derek's eyes are watering even now, as he stares up at the battle around the light and tries not to scream. His throat is sandpaper, and even his little bruised gasps catch and scrape and have him choking on blood._

"_No one's coming for you, Sweetie," she says, and Derek watches the spider catch and devour the fly and tries not to believe her. _

* * *

Mom gives Derek a speech on the way to Peter's house later that week, reasons and justifications and excuses. He lets her rattle on, doesn't bother arguing.

_She _was right. Mom doesn't want him.

But it's not even that bad, he thinks. Peter's not even that bad. And this could be good, maybe. Not having to see how broken everything is now. Peter hasn't really changed at all.

Mom hugs him as she leaves, and he lets her, trying not to shiver under her cigarette stench.

"I love you," she says, and he can't push out a verbal response, but he nods stiffly, and she accepts it as the most she's going to get right now.

He doesn't cry as she leaves. Maybe, finally, he's finished crying.

Wrong again. He's always wrong.

Two days later, he's running, blindly running, aiming for not-here not-here not-here.


	4. Chapter 4

_The first time she sees a scar on her brother's skin, she's twelve and he's fifteen, and it's a sharp white line snaking up his neck, all the way to his hair. She's on her feet instantly, the abandoned swing arcing violently behind her, and by his side, prodding his skin with her finger. He shudders like he's been electrocuted and jerks away._

_"He said he wouldn't touch you," she hisses, furious. "He promised."_

_"What're you-" He laughs, nervous, unconvincing. "It's nothing. It was an accident."_

_"Shut up," she snaps. "He swore he wouldn't touch you. He said if I-" She grins, sharp, bitter, eyes bright as broken glass. "I'll kill him, I swear."_

_He looks around nervously, shushes her. "Are you crazy? If he hears you-"_

_"What's he gonna do to me?" she challenges, spreading her arms wide. She's a tree, free and open and easy, wind gusting through her yellow dress. His favorite, he said, in that drawn-out gargling drawl of his. He's disgusting. He's evil._

_It's a pretty dress._

_"What's he got left, huh?" she dares the world, fear dancing on her back, the still-fresh burn tingling. "What can he do to me he hasn't already done to both of us? He swore to me!"_

_Her voice is loud, even to her; it bounces off the pavement, meets her again. Her brother's still fearful, desperate to shut her up._

_"He could kill you!" He's still trying to whisper. She laughs. He's fifteen. How is he so stupid?_

_"Fine!" she says. She feels freer than she has in years, standing in the backyard, arms outstretched, wind whipping at her face, the hem of her dress. "Fine!" she yells, glaring up at the sky. "Let him try!"_

_She stands in front of her brother, shields his body with her own. She's still taller than him; he hasn't hit his growth spurt yet. _He_ probably likes that._

_She's not scared. She's done being scared. He hurt her brother. He's got nothing left to threaten her with._

_"C'mon!" she shrieks, grabbing a nearby rake and brandishing it like a weapon. "C'mon!"_

_"Stop it, stop it!" her brother begs. "You can't- He'll kill you!"_

_"So what?" She's positively dancing, rake gripped tight in both fists. "I don't care! C'mon!"_

_"He'll kill me too!" He's frantic, his flushed face tear-stained. "I don't wanna die," he says. "Please-"_

_She lowers the rake slowly._

_"Fine," she says, suddenly exhausted. She drops the rake, sits down on the swing next to him, kicks at the dirt underneath her sneakers to gain some momentum. "But if he touches you again, I'll kill him in his sleep."_

_"Fine," he agrees, sneakers leaving short skidding tracks through the dirt._

_"I mean it," she swears, catching his eye. "I'm not him, okay? I. Mean. It."_

_"I know," he says. His eyes sweep the back of her neck, where her brown hair drapes down, long, thick, and shiny, obscuring the freckle-dusted skin of her shoulders. "Did he really-"_

_"I don't wanna talk about it, okay?" Her knuckles are white, fists tight around the chains. She can feel the metal links making imprints on her palms._

_He drops it, traces patterns in the dirt with the toes of his sneaker. _

_She closes her eyes, kicks off the ground, and pumps, and pumps, and pumps, and pumps, until she's flying through the air, hair wind-blown and wild, feeling freer than anything._

* * *

On the night before Derek gets sent off to live with Peter for a while, he wakes up with a throat scraped raw from screaming and a small figure staring down at him, eyes wide.

Derek shakes his stiff fists open and swipes a palm over his eyes.

"Eli," he says, as his vision clears. "What're you-"

"You're shaking," Eli says stiffly. The kid has taken to pointing it out every time. That's a lot of pointing out.

Derek tries to stop. He hasn't found a dependable fix yet.

"I'm-" Derek says, but he can't force out "fine." He's never been a good liar. "Don't worry about it."

"You were screaming," Eli says. Shit. Shit. Derek pushes himself upright, shakes his head.

"Just a nightmare," he says. "C'mere." Eli's awkward and tentative, but he comes closer, sits on the floor by Derek's mess of blankets. "You ever had a nightmare?"

Eli doesn't say anything. Derek shakes his head, huffs out a one-beat laugh. "Just a bad-"

"You went away," Eli blurts out. "For a long, long, _long_ time."

Derek closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, tries a smile. Something comforting, he can do that, right? His face feels like stiff plastic. "I didn't-" _want to_? He can't explain that to his kid brother. "It won't-" _happen again_? But you don't know that, some evil voice in his head laughs. He goes stiff, shudders under the phantom weight of her, and has to work to remember that Eli can see him, that he's acting crazy and freaking him out. "Everything's gonna be fine," he says. It's the most he can do right now.

It's not enough. His screaming woke Damon, who progresses from quiet whining to full-blown wailing, which has Mom up (dressing gown flung over her work clothes, which she apparently fell asleep in), to rock him and mutter harsh words in a soothing tone of voice. "I can't do this," she babbles at his red, screaming face. "I'm only human, you understand? You understand? No you don't. Oh no you don't, because you've got no responsibility what-so-ever! Uh-huh, whatsoever! Who's entitled to endless amounts of care and love without even a minimal amount of complaint in return? Who is it? Is it you? Is it always gonna be you? It is!"

"Mom," Aaron groans, rubbing his eyes blearily as he emerges from his and Eli's room. "I'll take him, okay? It's not a big deal."

"You have school tomorrow," Mom says in her normal voice. "There's already been one Hale expelled. There won't be a second. Go back to bed."

"I could-" Derek offers hesitantly. Mom flashes him a scathing look that shuts him up immediately. "Go to bed," she says. "Get a good night's sleep. Peter's looking forward to seeing you. Ash, too."

"Why's Mom mad at you?" Eli won't let it rest.

"I am not mad at him," Mom enunciates. Derek examines a fascinating square of carpet. "I am _frustrated_ by our current situation, which is not Derek's fault, and _hopeful_ that our new arrangement will improve it."

"What arrangement?"

"Aaron, go to bed. It's four in the morning."

"What new arrangement, Mom?"

Mom sighs. "We've talked about this," she says. "Derek's going to be staying with Peter for a while."

"What? No we haven't!" Aaron is wide awake and as loud as Derek has ever heard him. "We just got him _back_!"

But Eli is suddenly wooden. Even as Aaron prods him ("She's gonna make Derek leave again!") Eli just shrugs, and squeezes past the commotion to his bed.

"I'm not _making_ Derek leave," Mom says. "And he'll be back. We'll go visit him, too."

"Like we visit Ash?" Aaron asks. "Yeah, right."

"This isn't a discussion," Mom says.

"If you're not making Derek leave, why's he leaving?" His eyes widen. "Maybe to get away from you! You ever think about that?"

"Aaron Hale, go to bed. Now."

With even Derek silent and unopposing, Aaron shrinks, shakes his head. "Fine," he says. "Fine. Do whatever you want. I don't even care."

He goes back to his room and doesn't come out again.

When Mom tries to get the kids to say goodbye hours later, they're silent as tombs.

* * *

Peeking out from under ads and notices and a fringe of tabs of phone numbers for owners of lost dogs, cheap laborers, sales and gigs, Derek's face is taped to a tree not five feet from where Mom left him.

**HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?**

**DEREK HALE**

The picture is cropped so only Derek and part of Cam's arm is in frame, but Derek remembers this day. Cam had just come in at first place at the swim meet, and Derek had nearly passed out and barely made third place, and Mr. Lahey's new girlfriend was all about supporting _their boy_, so she had them pose together, bros, Cam's huge arm tight around Derek's neck, smile even tighter, teeth grinding together. God, he'd hated her, went on and on about how she pretended to care to charm his father and then cursed him around a cigarette on the phone: _His kids are unbearable, they're like the brats from the fucking_ Parent Trap, _I swear to God_. So there's Derek, soaked through and trying to breathe, pale as anything, faking a grin for Susanne Kingston, and then the flash explodes and his eyes shutter, and that's the picture on every fucking MISSING poster from here to wherever the fuck they stop; Derek gasping like a dying fish, eyes squeezed shut, teeth grit into a smile-shaped grimace that hurt his cheeks for ages afterward, hair damp and sticking to his forehead, horrible blunt bangs cutting off just under his eyebrows. That's the picture that was on channel 7, 9, 11. _America's kid_, they called him, in a shitty haircut and baring his stupid rabbit teeth, blinded, soaking wet and barely breathing. They used different pictures to start, his high school graduation, his sophomore prom (Lisa looking beautiful in a blue dress with her curly dark hair all down her back, Derek awkward in an expensive suit he was pretty sure didn't fit right, but he hadn't cared much once he saw her). But this is the one they went with in the end, or the most famous one anyway. This one was what made him into _America's kid_ instead of just Derek, the Hales' boring, forgettable middle kid. That was a big selling point, Ash says, because Ash doesn't mind telling Derek everything: the ad campaign to make people give a damn- Well, he didn't put it like that, exactly, but that was what it _was_, Derek's not an idiot-, the whole story of how the Hales broke into pieces: Caleb and Laura in New York, Ash with Peter, Aaron and Eli and Damon with Mom, Dad with nobody, because you don't get custody when you slur about how much you've sacrificed for your kids and then sleep through negotiation. Caleb left first, Ash says, went on some wilderness adventure, went scuba diving somewhere, went to New York to reinvent himself as a Williamsburg hipster, landed a job as a TA in NYU. Laura stuck by Dad the longest, Ash says, but after he burned down the house, she gave up. She was still pissed at Mom, though, so she went to college like she'd always planned to, stopped calling home after Ash stopped picking up the phone. Ash was kicked out of school about three months ago, and Mom really buckled after that, Ash says- he says, _Mom buckled_, so casual, like it's just another Tuesday, just another conversation about the fucking Apocalypse-, dumped Ash on Peter's doorstep like she dumped Derek now, where Derek stares at Before Derek and Cam's cropped arm and Ash tells him that they're better off, anyway; Peter actually gives a damn, and he doesn't smoke like a fucking chimney or get black-out drunk or...

Because those are the options now, Derek realizes, staring at stupid Before-Derek, who thought Hell was faking a smile after coming third, Camden "Best At Everything" Lahey wrapped around him like a vise. Who thought Hell was being strangled, literally and figuratively, by the best friend who would always be best at everything, and smiling through it, and accepting third place because at least you tried, what really matters, the only thing that really matters is that you try, Derek! Your best shot can bounce right off the rim of the net but at least you tried, hey, A for effort, F for execution! You couldn't get out yourself and you couldn't get them to save you but at least you _tried_, you hung in there and swam till you nearly passed out and then you kept swimming, good for fucking you, here's a fucking trophy for participating, here's Caleb's sneakers and Ash's clothes and a too-careful smile and a million excuses, _Sorry we couldn't save you, buddy, we tried our fucking best, that's what counts, right? _Here's a platter of cookies and a roomful of strangers with familiar faces, here's jello and razorblades, here's your bruises disappearing, here's where we rape you to see who raped you, very carefully, all explained step by step for the fucking forever it took by a very nice nurse named Melissa McCall, a S.A.N.E., Derek's never felt less sane in his life.

Under the picture, smaller letters give his identifying details:

**AGE 16**

**5'10, BLACK HAIR, HAZEL EYES**

**LAST SEEN WEARING A BLUE T-SHIRT, DARK JEANS, AND BLACK AND WHITE SNEAKERS**

and again, in oversized all-caps:

**REWARD: $100,000 FOR ANY INFORMATION**

Three little contact tabs hang from this flyer, still intact.

But at least he's out, right? At least he's as free as a fucking bird now, he can rip a contact tab off this flyer and call the number and collect and then Mom can quit her jobs and-

"Who has that much money?" Derek asks. "Not Mom-"

"Not anyone," Ash says. "Dad's got most of it, though. Or had, at least. Assuming he didn't set it on fire."

Derek's stomach and head tense and pound and twist, and he has to stop listening. Peter's saying something, then, but Derek isn't paying attention. He's looking up at Peter's house.

Peter's always been rich, so Derek figures the sight of his house shouldn't be so surprising. Maybe because everything else has gone to shit over the last eight months, but Derek guesses it's a little too much to ask Peter to pay Mom's bills, too. Still, it's pretty weird, going from a tiny, cramped apartment to the huge two-story property when Mom's living with Alex and Eli and Damon, and Peter's pretty much by himself most of the time. But Grandad had a lot of money, and a lot of houses, and a very clear will. Dad got the biggest one, three stories on the top of the hill, gazebo in the back garden; Peter got the duplex, smaller but closer to town. Grandad would be furious at Dad for burning down the house: he was always really dramatic, and Derek can picture him, red-faced, clutching his chest, pulling out his wallet with shaky fingers, saying, "You want to burn this, too? Any more of my money, you want to burn? This is how I raised you, that you should burn money? And leave your wife out in the cold? My grandchildren, Dovid'l? This is how you behave? This is respectable to you?"

Inside, Ash has already marked his territory. His guitar is laid haphazardly on the leather couch, still plugged into its amp, and every bedroom but Peter's has at least one Fuck the Runaways flyer on the wall like a poster. Peter apparently let Ash's band play at his bakery, since, like Derek, the kid is too young to get into clubs or bars. (Unlike Derek, he looks it. Before, Derek liked to think he could pass for eighteen, maybe nineteen or twenty even, if he didn't shave. Cam could pass for twenty-one easy; the guy was a mountain. No one would guess he was sixteen. They didn't go to bars or clubs often, but Cam liked to just to show off how cocky he was, walking right in like he owned the place. Derek could never manage a swagger like that; whenever he tried, it just looked like his pants were too tight and he was trying to walk without torturing himself. Cam's joke, obviously, but he must have had a point, because everyone laughed.) The name is new: eight months ago, they'd been Broken Telegraph Says Go, or was it Disposable Heroes? No, Boyd had vetoed that one. He said they wouldn't be able to keep the name once they got big unless Metallica signed the rights away, and he was doubtful that would ever happen. Yeah, they were Broken Telegraph Says Go, and whatever they were called, they were pretty terrible, but Ash is intensely proud of his band and his music. BTSG was Sum 41 with an angrier, less catchy spin. It was Sum 41 forced to play at gunpoint after watching their lyricist be murdered. Cam's joke, but he wasn't exaggerating. It was bad.

Then again, Derek isn't much into music at all. His mom was pretty strict about what he could and couldn't listen to, and Christian music never really appealed to him. He's seen a couple live shows with Cam and Jeff and Alex, but no good bands toured in Beacon Hills. It was all locals and people who were lost. Cam's joke again. He's funny, Cam. He always says the things everyone's thinking, but in a clever way that Derek wouldn't have thought of. Kind of harsh, sometimes, but always honest, and always funny.

Derek isn't funny or smart or creative or even the best on the swim team. Derek is just Derek. Middle kid, quiet, forgettable. If he'd've been funny, people would've remembered him, probably. People would've _found_-

It's stupid to think like that, what-ifs and should'ves and do-overs, but Derek can't help it. He can't help trying to figure out how he could've gotten out, before everything got ruined. How he should've avoided her in the first place. Never even gone to that stupid party. He wasn't going to! Cam practically dragged him out to face the firing squad of Lisa's friends, and for what? Were Cam and Jessica even together now? That was the point, wasn't it? He isn't sure if it would make him feel better or worse if something good actually came out of this. If Cam's actually happy now. Not too happy, obviously. That would be no-holds-barred horrible. But not all broken and miserable like Mom and Dad. Maybe that's what it meant, being bros: You let me punch you in the face in the name of love (but not really), I go to a party where some psychopath -

No, he's not ready to joke about that. He's not ready to think about that.

But that's all he can think about.

"Why Fuck the Runaways?" he asks Ash, because look at that: distraction.

"What?"

Derek indicates one of the fliers scattered in the living room. His bedroom is lined with them, a hundred miniature Ash and Boyds doing their best tough poses, Ash's hundred drum kits stenciled under a hundred logos. Cheap fliers printed on cheap, brightly colored paper. Mom would've never allowed it, religiously or aesthetically. "Why the new band name? I thought you and Boyd settled on Broken Telegraph Says Go."

"Oh," Ash says, strangely nervous. "Um, lots of reasons. BTSG? It's not catchy. It's too long, you know? Plus, Erica wanted a name that-" He stops, grabs his guitar off the couch and hugs it to his chest like a security blanket. Thankfully, he doesn't attempt to play it. "Erica's new," he says quickly. "She was home-schooled till now. Her parents are, like, really into travelling, and she's been all around the world with them. It's insane. She is _siiick_ on the drums. Anyway, she said we needed a name that fit our hardcore sound, and Boyd agreed with her."

"Boyd agreed with her," Derek repeats, arching an eyebrow. "About your hardcore sound."

"Yeah, well, if he wants to be in The National, he can go join them. Erica and I want to be death metal."

"Death metal," Derek repeats. "What happened to being the next Blink-123?"

"Oh my god, how are we related?" Ash asks, scandalized. "It's Blink-182. And we've outgrown whiny lyrics about how hard it is to be a kid."

"Oh," says Derek, who is not an expert on Blink-182's lyrical content. "What do you write about, then?"

"It's hard to explain," Ash says, arranging his fingers on the frets. "But I could play-"

"You could," Derek agrees, searching for a way out of this one. "No you can't, actually," he says quickly, before Ash can start. "I mean, yeah, you could, but I'm not gonna get the full experience unless you've got the whole setup. Boyd, Erica, everything. So maybe, at your next show-" It's a brilliant excuse, really. Ash probably won't have another show in ages.

"Peter says we can move practice to the basement once he finishes soundproofing it," Ash says eagerly. "He's been working on it since I came here. Can you believe that?"

Derek, who has heard his brother practice way too many times, can definitely believe that.

"Peter's awesome," Ash goes on. "He doesn't even have a block on his computer, you could look at anything. He doesn't care. And he's got this awesome house all to himself, and his own bakery, and have you seen his TV? It's _massive_! And the surround sound is _crazy_-" And then his face absolutely lights up. "And he has the best girlfriend ever. She's awesome. She's, like, the whole package, you know?"

"No," Derek says truthfully. He probably wouldn't know "the whole package" if it knocked him out cold.

Which- yeah. Yeah, so, he may be taking a break from girls for a while. A long, long while. Because obviously, his instincts suck.

And anyway, he is not ready to explain what the fuck _Sweetie_ is supposed to mean.

Maybe he's one of those Christians who don't have sex before marriage. Except is he even Christian, anymore? He's pretty sure God is a big fat stupid lie, so, probably not.

He's probably the first abstinent atheist ever.

Ash gestures with the guitar again. "-wrote her a song," he says, unplugging his amp. "It's acoustic, so I don't need the rest of the band." He sits down, starts strumming.

Derek gives up. "Fine," he says. "Let's hear it."

"'...and I don't care! If your silky hair! Is black! Or blonde! Or brown-ooooown,'" Ash sings what feels like hours later, "'you're still the prettiest girl I know! In this whole fucking town-own! Beacon Hills is pretty shit but it's been better of lay-ate! Because there's-' What?"

"You wrote Peter's girlfriend a song about how beautiful she is," Derek says flatly. After sixteen stanzas of four chords, these lyrics, and the occasional falsetto, he's found his breaking point. "_Peter's_ girlfriend."

"It's not weird," Ash says, cheeks going red. His cheeks, Derek's ears- all they need is Rudolph, and they'll have the whole set. Actually not Cam's joke this time. "It's honest."

"You _honestly_ want to fuck Peter's girlfriend." Derek nods, as if this is perfectly reasonable. "Okay."

"I don't want to- Shut up!" Ash snaps, throwing his guitar down on the seat beside him.

"I can see that." Why is Derek being such an ass? He thinks, _I'm being such an ass_, even as he speaks.

"Oh my _god_! You-" Ash glares at him. "You're different, you know that? You used to be nice."

Derek grins a bitter little grin. "Yeah, that worked well for me."

Ash flushes again, darker. "I didn't- That's not what I meant."

"Oh?"

"I just- Forget it."Ash picks up his guitar, storms upstairs to his room. "I hope she hates you!"

"Like you need any more competition!" Derek calls, just in time to hear a door slam.

He feels like shit immediately. Ash didn't do anything wrong. Except attempt to write music. But Derek just had to piss off the last person who still liked him, didn't he?

He's already getting nervous about eventually meeting Peter's girlfriend. From Ash's song, Derek has gleaned that she's beautiful, smells like mangoes, doesn't need to lose weight (no, really, that's a lyric in the song), has silky hair, likes a new show called Supernatural, and makes Beacon Hills great. And good for Peter for finding someone. Mom used to worry about him and try to set him up with girls from church. Dad thought he was gay. There'd been a really _interesting_ family discussion about homosexuality and God after that. Mom went with peace, love, and Jesus; Dad went with, _I'm not gonna speak for God, but if he made... those people, he must've made them for a reason, that's all I'm saying_. Acceptance seemed to be the message of the Hale family, but Derek wasn't about to ask any specific questions until he had a bigger reason than Drew Santos' shoulders. Besides, he loved Lisa, so he figured, why even mention it?

There definitely isn't any reason now. Derek is quickly coming to a conclusion his instincts have apparently already worked out a long time ago: he isn't risking this again, not when he still can't figure out how he could've avoided it. The resolution is kind of ridiculously calming: he's the only one who can touch him. Cam will probably think it's weird and make some kind of joke about Derek being a monk or something, but fuck Cam. Sometimes his jokes aren't even funny, and everyone laughs anyway, nervously, like disagreeing with Cam is dangerous. Which is such bullshit.

Derek huffs out a long breath. That's just what he needs, isn't it. Pissing off his best friend. It's not like it's Cam's fault that-

It's not Ash's fault either, but when Derek isn't crying he's just angry, all the time, at everyone. It doesn't even make sense, but everything makes him feel sick and furious, rage coiling under his skin until it feels two sizes too small, till he's vacuum-packed and sweaty with prickling adrenaline, and then he snaps at someone who hasn't done anything wrong, and for five seconds, he can breathe again, fiercely pounding heartbeat and and a rush of adrenaline, until he remembers that they haven't done anything wrong, and he's being a giant passive-aggressive asshole for no reason, and his heartbeat stutters to a too-loud thump...thump...thump..., and he's just an asshole with stupid blushing ears wishing he'd never said anything.

He goes for a run. Before, he'd run whenever he was moody, and plenty of times when he wasn't. He's always been a little obsessed with fitness. He figured maybe that was his thing: _That's Derek, he's really in shape._ Of course, next to Cam, he looked like a bean pole anyway, but he liked the feeling of pushing himself to his limits, of doing his best. He couldn't break Cam's records, but he could break his own.

Except now he can't. He can barely run at all. He makes it two blocks from Peter's house before he has to lean against a tree, gasping like he's done a marathon, just so he won't sink to his wobbly knees.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck!_

He really is useless in every possible way, isn't he?

He's figured out, too, that even if he goes back to school (which is insanely terrifying for some reason, _God_ he's a freak now), he'll be so far behind, he'll probably have to repeat the grade. He strains his brain, tries to remember the last class he had, but he's missing chunks of time, not just in the right places, but before any of it. Just big blank spaces in his brain where there's supposed to be something. That's not normal, is it? Maybe whatever she hit him with gave him selective amnesia or something, like something out of those movies Rachel used to love so much. If he gets sucked into a dramatic scene at an airport, he's definitely killing himself.

Whoa.

Not really, probably. It would be pretty stupid to live through all of that just to kill himself once he got out.

Wouldn't it?

_But you're not out, not really._

He shoves the thought away, rubs his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger, like he can physically pull her out of his head. He can't think like that. If he thinks like that, he'll lose his fucking mind.

Besides, people who kill themselves go to Hell. He's pretty sure he heard that somewhere. Be pretty funny, wouldn't it, to kill yourself, only to end up somewhere worse-

But how does anyone know anything about Hell? It's not like anyone came back to talk about it, right?

Hell is probably just another one of those stupid lies, like Santa and Satan- oh.

Yeah, you can't have Hell without Satan.

Fuck, Derek is such an idiot. He just accepts everything that people tell him. No wonder he fell for her sweet act. She could've had a giant flashing sign over her head saying "DANGER- DO NOT APPROACH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" and he probably wouldn't have noticed it.

Maybe this is good, kind of. This is Derek learning not to be a moron.

He drags himself upright and back to Peter's house, crafting resolutions: He'll apologize to Ash. He'll stop being such an asshole to everyone. He'll start training again, getting back in shape.

He can make this work. He can keep going. He can get back to- well, not normal, exactly, but something like it. He can talk to Cam again, and stop acting like such a freak.

And then Mom will come back for him, and he'll be a good big brother to Ash and Aaron and Eli and Damon. He'll call Laura, too. Ash probably has her number. And Caleb, and Dad. They'll all get around this. They'll all get through and over this.

Derek just has to stop being such a freak, and then everything will be okay.

* * *

_The first time she gets revenge, she's sixteen and he's a complete stranger. _

_She knows the faces of her ignorant friends and neighbors in Beacon Hills too well to make a mistake. He's not from around here._

_He's ordinary looking. Normal. Harmless._

_But they always look harmless until they get you alone._

_She knows things girls her age are just learning. Has known for years. How a casual accidental brush isn't casual or accidental at all. The press of shaky fingers knocking against bone. The exact intonation of the ugliest I love you. The muscle memory trapped under skin._

_What it feels like to burn._

_She still smiles sweet. Narrows her eyes once the idiots turn their backs. That's something she learned from him: masks. No one would ever suspect that one of the town's most prominent families could be this rotten. Not when they look this pretty._

_Not when they smile this sweet._

_She catches his eye. Lets it slip out slow. Her teeth meet the dim alley light square by square. He'll think she's tentative. He'll think she's nervous._

_He'll think, This is going to be easy._

_But she has a knife tucked away in a pretty place. She has a knife and a lighter and a whole night before Daddy gets back from chasing bail jumpers._

_A whole night to burn._

_And for once, she won't be the one burning._

_So she smiles her sweet little nervous smile and waits for him to say the magic words._

_"Need a ride?"_

* * *

In the time that Derek's been gone, Peter's bakery, Bite Me, got a facelift. Besides the backyard, which is cleaned up and fitted with a cozy outdoor cafe, there's a new awning, a cheery new paint job, new menus on the walls, and about half a dozen new cupcake flavors. Ash takes credit for those with his usual humble tact and sensitivity by grabbing Derek's arm and pulling him over to a seat beside the display.

"Try it, try it," he urges, shoving a weird-looking cupcake in Derek's general direction.

"It's green," Derek says, innately distrustful of green pastries.

"It's not spinach or Brussels sprouts or anything gross like that, it's Pistachio-Mint Macchiato," Ash says, exasperated. "It's good, just try it!"

"What's a Macchiato?" Derek asks, rotating the strange little cupcake under his nose to examine it from all directions.

"It's a fancy name for the tattoo-looking thing of the four-leaf clover on top, see?" Ash shrugs. "I wanted to call it The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but Peter didn't think people would get it."

Peter's right. Derek arches an eyebrow.

"It's from a book," Ash says, looking heavenward, as if beseeching God himself to come down and educate Derek on literature.

"It's from a Swedish book." Derek startles, alarmed, and immediately feels like an idiot. Peter's always had a dramatic flair, and his knack for appearing surprisingly behind people is nothing new. It's just unsettling, that's all. "In Swedish," Peter adds, as Derek catches his breath and tries to ignore his furiously thumping heartbeat. He takes a bite of the cupcake just to distract himself. It's actually really good.

"You read Swedish?" Derek asks, once he's expressed that sentiment. "Since when?"

Ash shrugs, humble as ever. "I've had a lot of free time."

"Yeah, right," Derek says, skeptical. "I bet you know fifteen words and the book's just an excuse to brag about it. What's it even called?"

"_Män som hatar kvinnor_," Ash says smugly. "'_Men Who Hate Women_.'"

"You could be saying anything, though, and I wouldn't know," Derek realizes.

"_Jag_ _kunde_, but I'm not," Ash reasons. "And I can curse in German. _Geh zur Hölle_."

"What's that mean?"

"'Go to-'"

"Yes, very impressive," Peter cuts in smoothly, swooping in again with a box of cupcakes. "This one's Spiced Cranberry-"

"That one's boring," Ash says disdainfully, but he takes one anyway. "It's not spicy at all. It doesn't even have a cool name."

"It's a classic," Peter explains, handing one to Derek. Derek makes an effort not to shudder away from his fingers. God, he is such a freak now. It's just _Peter_.

"This place is called Bite Me," Ash says, cheek bulging full of cupcake and cinnamon-almond buttercream frosting. "Classic has nothing to do with it."

"There's no reason to bow to other people's expectations," Peter says loftily. "I see no reason why we can't feed both the elegant connoisseurs and the _Twilight_ fans."

"What's _Twilight_?" Derek asks.

"Oh, brother, you missed so much," Ash says, taking another cupcake and devouring it in two massive bites. "Okay, 2005 in a nutshell. Um, George Bush is president again-"

"I _know_ that." Derek rolls his eyes. "It was eight months, not a whole year." It's weird, talking about this so candidly, but Derek doesn't really mind. He prefers this to his dad's crying or his mom's... everything. Definitely.

"Okay, I don't know, it felt like forever," Ash says defensively. Derek has to half-smile at that. Strange as this conversation is, it's the first time anyone actually said they missed him since he's been back. He'd started to give up on the hope. "Um, what else," Ash charges on, not realizing how much those four words mean to Derek, who tries Peter's cupcake to cover up the fact that he's grinning like an idiot. "There's this thing called YouTube where you can watch-"

"I _know_," Derek says, still grinning. "Skip to May."

"Okay, okay," Ash says. "Um, Kuwaiti women can vote now, I think that happened in May."

"Who?"

"Women in Kuwait," Ash says patiently. "It's an Arab state? In Asia?"

"Oh," says Derek. When did Ash get so smart? Or maybe Derek's just extra stupid now. He hasn't been to school or read a book or even watched TV in ages. He's completely clueless about everything. "Cool." God, he sounds like a total moron.

"What else... There was a huge hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, in the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana and Florida. Like 2000 people died, it was awful. And Kanye West said George Bush doesn't care about black people. Oh and Saddam Hussein went on trial, that's still going on. And Michael Jackson is allegedly not a- Oh." Here, suddenly, he stops short, and tries to keep going like nothing happened. "Um, and this girl named Carrie Underwood won American Idol-"

But Derek's not listening anymore. The cupcake is gritty and tasteless in his mouth, and he can feel phantom fingers stroking up his spine, and he needs to-

He rolls his shoulders to push the chill away, stands up. "I need to- I'm going for a walk."

"C'mon, man, I didn't- I wasn't thinking," Ash says, getting up to follow him.

"I know," Derek says, and it's stupid, he's being stupid, he's being oversensitive about everything. "I just- I need a minute. Alone."

It's still his first week back, he's just acclimating, Peter said. And it's just his second day living at Peter's house. It's a whole new arrangement. So that's it, probably. He'll stop acting like a freak as soon as he's used to everything again.

He still hasn't called Cam. Every time he thinks about it, the dread in his stomach builds up worse and worse.

He will call, of course. Cam's his best friend. Cam's his only real friend. Which is why he can't fuck it up by talking to him while he's still acting spastic. He'll call, definitely, once he's back to normal. Over it. Acclimated.

He can get over it, probably. Peter has an decent shower, and Derek scraped himself raw, let the bathroom fill with steam and cooked himself till he was boiled red as a lobster. He keeps peeling his scabs, which is a little bit weird, but Cam doesn't have to know that. And his bruises are fading, and he already can't remember big chunks of what happened. Just- gone. So that's good.

Except he still flinches when someone touches him, even if he's expecting it, and the stupidest things terrify him, and everything makes him remember, and even if he doesn't wake up screaming, he wakes up with his eyes watering, and sometimes the back of his head still aches where she- but that's not possible, right? Other places, fine, but his head shouldn't hurt anymore, right? She only did that once, eight months ago. It's not like- if he has a concussion or internal bleeding or something, the hospital would've figured it out, right?

But even now, just walking, adrenaline snaking under his skin for no reason, it feels like she just-

He never actually found out what she hit him with. She never answered questions, or maybe she did and he can't remember. Even the parts he can remember are kind of vague and faded, like a movie he saw a long time ago, and only the phantom pain and the still-real sores and bruises and the too-present panic are just enough to remind him that it wasn't a movie at all.

He remembers long stretches of just waiting, just lying or sitting and trying to get comfortable, or trying to find a less painful position at least, and just waiting, coming up with stupid games to pass the time, stupid stories to tell himself, to distract himself. Lots of fusion fiction, James Bond and Derek Hale and Dad and the sheriff. There were all these important reasons why they couldn't come get Derek until now, but now they could, soon they would finally-

Whatever.

Anyway, it was stupid. He knew it wasn't real. It was just a big fucking joke.

He remembers wondering, making up stories about what she did when she wasn't-

Her face is blurring, too. All he can see now, in nightmares, is her long blonde hair and her thin bony fingers and one furious look on her face. He never could've guessed, outside Jess's party, that someone so pretty could make a face like that, all red and sweaty, eyes narrowed, mouth wide open in a harsh scream. She looked possessed, like a monster, like Satan, but real.

But he can't remember her saying anything.

He's pretty sure Satan isn't real. It's like Santa, probably: just a stupid lie made up by parents to get kids to be good. But whoever made up Satan never told his kids it wasn't real, and people kept right on believing their whole lives. Same thing with God, Derek figures, and Jesus. Well, Jesus was probably a real person, but not the son of God, or anything. It's pretty stupid, actually, now that he thinks about it. It's almost hard to believe he fell for it.

Derek had been one of the stupid kids who believed in Santa right up to the day Laura told him he wasn't real. She'd never even fallen for it in the first place. She probably would've seen right through _her_, too.

Everyone calls it pessimism, but the way Derek sees it, she's just smart. Derek just keeps on being five years old, waiting to catch a glimpse of the stupidest lie in the world, never even questioning it.

He gets tired out quickly, sinks down under the tree like a child throwing a tantrum. He's still not really used to being able to move, basically. There's nothing stopping him, nothing's broken and he knows how, he just hasn't for a while. There's a stitch in his side, he's out of breath; if he had a swim meet now, he wouldn't manage two laps. He'd just sink to the bottom like a dead weight, or Drew Santos off steroids.

It's Cam's joke, of course, and it's not really even that funny, but it sticks in your head anyway.

Derek just sits there like a stupid kid, scratching at a scab through a hole in his jeans, scraping at the rough edges and pulling without thinking. When he has a flap of skin like stiff plastic on his thumb, blood beading and spilling over the freshly opened wound, he stares at it for a few minutes, studies it between his fingers like a sample under a microscope. It doesn't even look like skin. It doesn't even look like anything.

According to Peter's computer, it takes thirty-five days for the epidermis to replace itself. It's been five days since he's been home and more than that since she touched him. Maybe it's been thirty-five days already. He should've counted. She stopped telling him and he'd stopped keeping count ages ago. It takes thirty-five days for the top layer of skin to replace itself, but Derek could speed it up, force the process like this. He's sick of feeling her all over, but in thirty-five days or less he'll have all new skin and the feeling will be gone. It takes thirty-five days to get a new top layer of skin, and seven years for the entire body to replace itself. If he gets through eight years, he'll be a Derek Hale who none of this ever happened to. If he gets through thirty-five days, that'll be the start of it. He'll start from the beginning, thirty-five, because he doesn't know how long it's been, because thirty-five sounds long enough but not too long. In thirty-five days he'll be normal. Mom'll be able to look at him again. He'll call Cam. Yesterday's resolutions with new focus, with a timeline: thirty-five days. And school, too, he'll go back to school. Everything'll be okay in thirty-five days.

He stands, turns around, drags himself back to Bite Me before anyone starts to worry.

He's pretty sure even Ash wouldn't care if he went missing a second time.

* * *

"Derek Hale?"

Crap. Crap crap crap.

Another unwelcome side effect of the global campaign to get Derek back home is the way people treat him like a celebrity. And not a cool celebrity, like Johnny Depp or Tom Hanks, but a half-recognizable reality star who got their head run over by a bus or something. An uncertain "Do I know you from something?" forces him to make small talk or forcefully ignore whichever stranger he meets. Then there's the "Oh. Oh my god, you're Derek Hale," in any number of horrified or empathetic voices. Next there's kind of a divide: Some people, mostly women, will offer sympathy or condolences; men will usually go quiet and awkward and say something like, "You're good now, though," with a really uneasy look on their face, followed by an awkward aborted half-pat on the back ("This is okay, right? Okay, good luck"); and particularly daring teenagers will ask questions like, "Were they really big? Was it like _Don't drop the soap_? Was it like, nonstop, or did they let you take breaks?" Then there are the people from church, who offer blessings and prayer and a lot of talk about God's love, and then there are the people who don't look him in the eye, or even talk to him, just whisper like he can't hear them. The first few times, he just froze, nodded numbly to everything and just stood there until they were gone. Mom took him to church to go confess because one of her friends thought Derek would spill every dark secret in confession and that would fix everything, and Derek got mobbed by well-meaning bible-thumpers until he refused to even go inside. Mom sighed and treated Derek to a monologue about how hard she was trying all the way home. Ash was with him after that, like his lawyer or something: all "You don't have to answer that" and "We're leaving." When he ran alone, he ran right past anyone who looked like they had a word to say to him. But now he'd made the mistake of sitting down in a public place, practically begging the entire county to come witness the real-life adventures of Derek Hale. He feels useless! He peels his scabs because he's a freak now! He really doesn't want to talk to people! He hates everyone, including himself! Seven wonders, fifty cents!

"I'm fine," he snaps at the latest amateur interviewer. "No, I don't want to talk about it. Maybe I just want to sit here and be left alone for five minutes, you ever think of that?"

"Okay," she says. "If that's what you want."

And like a fucking miracle, she actually turns to go.

"Wait," Derek says. "What's your- Do I know you?"

"I don't think so," she says, turning back. "My son's been asking about you all week," she adds. "He'll be okay, he just got a little shaken up."

Wait. What?

"At the station," she explains. "It was a bit more exciting than John thought it would be-"

"John's your kid?"

"My husband. The sheriff," she says. "I'm Julie Stilinski. My son's name- Well, his name is Genim, but you probably know him as Stiles."

It comes back in pieces: pressed to the cement, freezing to death; the sheriff's warm car; the uncomfortable chair in the sheriff's office, the kid at the sheriff's desk, chocolate milk and questions. It hadn't seemed as bad, then, the questions. He wasn't just some freak show on display. It didn't feel like that, anyway.

"How is he?" Derek asks. It's strange to be asking the questions for once.

"He's-"

"I didn't-" Derek interrupts her. "I was- He'll be okay. I mean, you said that."

"He's strong," Julie says. "He just needed to know that you're safe now."

Oh.

"But he doesn't- I mean," Derek catches himself. "How does he know that?"

"Derek, if there's something you want to tell my husband-"

"No!" Derek shouts. His ears go pink, and he lowers his voice. "No, I just mean, how does he know I'm gonna be okay? I don't even- Forget it." He presses his lips together, frustrated.

"Melissa's a good friend of mine," Julie says. "She's got a lot of faith in you. So does John."

Melissa. From the hospital. "Yeah, all that crying like a baby must have been what tipped her off."

"Don't sell yourself short," she says. "I haven't been a baby in more than thirty years and I still need a good cry now and then. Besides, those bruises would have WWE fighters hiding in a corner."

"And I'm just hiding under a tree." He shakes his head. "It's not- I mean, I'm used to that, you know?" Of course she does, everyone in North America does. He ducks his head, draws his knees up to him chest. "It's just- Everything's different. Everything. My mother, she was like- And my _father_-"

"That must be really hard," Julie says. "See? You're not overreacting. You're just... reacting. And sometimes that means crying. That doesn't change who you are."

"It's just, what if I never-" He shakes his head. "Forget it. It doesn't matter." He searches for a way to change the subject, to stop oversharing with the sheriff's wife. Why is he even still talking to her? If_ she_ finds out- "Stiles- You said Stiles is okay, right? Now that you've told him I'll be fine."

"He's-" Here she shifts, pauses. "He baked you cookies. He thought you'd-"

Derek puts two and two together quickly. "That was him?"

"Well, I may have helped a little," Julie admits, "But it was his idea." There's a proud smile on her face, thinking about it, which makes Derek think of his mother, which ruins everything.

"I should go," he says. "My uncle and my brother are probably- I should go. But- Thanks. For the cookies, and the- but I really can't do this."

He doesn't wait for her response; he just runs.

* * *

When Derek gets back to Bite Me, Ash doesn't look worried at all. He's practically glowing. He breaks into a grin- well, a wider grin- when he spots Derek, and rushes up to him to sing in his ear, "Peter's proposing!"

"What?" Derek says, because Ash's falsetto is painful to listen to and even harder to understand.

"Peter," Ash says, a little lower this time. "He's gonna propose! Wait, are you okay?"

"What?" Derek says again, confused by the sudden subject change. And he really doesn't know how to answer that question. "I'm- I'll be fine." _Thirty-five days._

"Dude, sit down. You look like you're about to fall over." Ash pulls a chair over to Derek, who collapses onto it. "And eat this." He plucks a cupcake from the display and shoves it in Derek's direction. "It's called 'Six O'Clock Somewhere.' Chocolate with a kick. Jesus, were you chased or something?"

Derek actually jerks around to check before slumping and taking a big bite of Six O'Clock Somewhere to cover up the sudden panic spilling through him at the thought. "Just out of shape," he says eventually, mouth ridiculously dry. "What were you saying?"

"Hang on a second," Ash says. "Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate? Seriously, I'm bugging Peter to take us shopping, no arguments. That shirt is gonna split in two the second you gain a pound. You in my clothes? No fit. Plus you need a jacket. It's February and you're _shaking_."

"I'll be fine," Derek repeats. He hadn't noticed he was shaking. He tries to stop.

"Yeah you will. With a jacket and a coffee or something. So? What'll it be?"

"Um, tea," Derek says, giving in.

"Milk, sugar?"

"Honey, if you have it."

"Are you kidding me?" Ash says, scandalized. "Does this look like a truck stop? Am I wearing a cap offering mustache rides?"

Derek snorts.

"Of course we have honey. Anyway," Ash says, once Derek's hands are wrapped around a steaming Styrofoam cup of the best green tea he's had in eight months, "Peter's proposing."

He takes a long slug of peppermint chocolate chip latte and licks his foam mustache clean. "I found the ring," he says. "I know, it's quick, but I swear, she's awesome. Besides, they knew each other when they were kids, I think. Laura thinks she's the reason he's been holding out on dating for so long. It's true love."

Derek arches an eyebrow over the lip of his cup, sets it down. "_Laura_ thinks that."

"Well, she was being sarcastic, but I think there's some genuine sentiment under all the sass. Besides, she's in New York. She's never even met Kate."

"Who?"

"Kate?" Ash frowns at Derek. "Peter's girlfriend? You've haven't met her yet, but you'll love her."

"Oh," Derek says, as casually as he can. He grabs the tea, takes a slug just to have something to do with his hands. It's stupid how nervous he is. He hasn't even met the woman yet and he's already acting like a freak. "The one who smells like kumquats." Why can't Peter be gay? Derek doesn't hate women or anything like that. He's just kind of terrified of them.

Which is stupid. He knows plenty of normal, non-scary women. Girls. Whatever. Or not as scary, anyway. He's not opposed to the whole gender, as a concept, or anything.

That nurse was okay, the SANE. Melissa. Considering.

And Laura isn't half bad.

Anyway, he'll be fine. Kate. Okay. He can handle meeting new people. He can handle meeting Peter's girlfriend.

"Mangoes," Ash corrects. "Yeah. And it's not what you think, okay? She's Peter's girlfriend, I don't- I just like her. She's nice."

See? She's nice. She's not going to bite. She's probably not going to try to touch him, except maybe a hug or something.

Oh god, what if she tries to hug him? Hugging Mom was hard enough. And that was _Mom_.

But it's not like he can just come out and say, "Hi, I'm Derek. If you touch me, I'll probably cry."

Still, his mind whirs on the subject for the next few hours as Ash and Peter work their charm on the customers and Derek hides in the Employees Only bathroom because just the thought of having to talk to strangers sends him into a panic.

So maybe he can't handle meeting new people.

Yet.

He just needs to take a deep breath, he figures, and make it clear that human contact will probably make him have a nervous breakdown without actually putting it like that. Beacon Hills is a small town. If one person thinks you're weird, everyone does.

_Hug? Oh, sorry, no. I'm allergic._

_Hi, I'm Derek. I'm gay. And terrified of women._

_The name's Hale. Derek Hale. ...Yeah, don't touch me._

_Derek. I have a contagious flesh-eating virus. Nice to meet you, though._

_It's this abstinence thing. Because I'm Christian. You probably wouldn't understand it._

_DON'T TOUCH ME, MOTHERFUCKER!_

Yeah, no.

Operation: Stop Being Such A Giant Freak in Thirty-five Days is pretty much guaranteed to end in failure.

And probably tears.

* * *

Dad is outside Peter's house when the three of them get back from work. He's fresh-showered, scrubbed pink and shaved clean, but he smells sharp and sour and Derek's pretty sure there's a flask of something tucked away in one of his wide jacket pockets.

"David," Peter says, getting between the two teenagers and their father like a bodyguard. "What are you doing here?"

"So it's true," Dad says. He sounds more like his old self, like the father Derek remembers, voice steady and sober, but he squints in the dimming daylight and shades his eyes to peer over Peter's shoulder. "She really sent him away. She just got him _back_! You tell me how a mother can be that heartless. Does she just not _care_?"

"David," Peter says sharply. Behind him, Ash sneers. "Like he's any better. They're both assholes."

_What happened to them?_ Derek wants to ask, but the words stick in his throat. He already knows the answer, doesn't he?

"What do you want?" Peter asks.

"He's gonna say a bunch of shit about Mom," Ash explains to Derek, "and then try to buy us back with gifts."

"I brought my sons some things," Dad tells Peter. "That's alright, isn't it? I can buy things for my children?"

"Spare us the ceremonies, David," Peter says. Behind him, Ash grins. "Peter never falls for it," he tells his brother proudly. Derek frowns, unsure.

"But Dad's trying," he says. "He obviously-"

"Obviously nothing," Ash interrupts. "He shows up like twice a month with some pricey gift, talks about how Mom ditched me and he fought for me- He loves that, it's like his bullshit catchphrase or something- and then he goes back to wherever the fuck he's staying and blames everyone else for his mistakes and drinks until he blacks out."

"Oh," says Derek, who still can't picture his dad like that, even after seeing him in the hospital. He feels kind of sick. "I'm- Ash, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Ash asks, giving him a funny look. "It's not your fault he's such a dick."

"Isn't it?" Derek says desperately. He can't make the words line up right on his tongue, but he's sure he could've, should've stopped this somehow.

"Dude," Ash says, a worried look in his eyes. "You can't honestly- You weren't even _here_, man!"

Derek ducks his head, stares down at the laces of Caleb's scuffed-up sneakers. One of the aglets is missing.

"Don't touch me," Peter snarls suddenly. Derek's head snaps up just in time to see Dad step back, hands up in surrender.

"You always were sensitive," Dad says, taking several exaggerated steps back. "Alice always wondered what your problem was. Why you've been single for years." He laughs. "As if it's by choice."

"David-" Peter starts, but Ash cuts in. "He is not single! He's got an awesome girlfriend, and she's a hell of a lot nicer than yours!"

"Dad has a-?" Derek can't even say it.

"Some plastic bitch he probably picked up at a Hooters," Ash says scathingly. He turns to Dad again. "Peter's got something _real_," he says. "He's gonna propose, you know that?"

"Little Petey's pwoposing?" Dad says, mock-awe in his voice. It's awful, suddenly unbearable, the way he treats Peter. There's always been some ribbing, but this is just mean. Dad's a middle school bully, and Peter doesn't have a Cam to defend him.

He has Ash, though. What Derek's teenage brother lacks in size, he makes up for with his sharp tongue.

"I was sure you were one of those closeted homosexuals!" Dad says. "He sells sparkly cupcakes for a living!"

"Don't you have a Barbie doll to get back to?" Ash snaps.

Dad sobers up quick. "Lacey has never been anything but nice to you. There's no need to make this personal."

_Lacey_, Derek thinks. _Of course Dad's girlfriend has a name like _Lacey.

_Dad has a _girlfriend_._

"Personal?" Ash spits. "Peter's been nothing but nice to you and me, and you're still a giant asshole to him."

"He doesn't want me to see you!" Dad protests. "And I didn't see him putting up fliers and hiring detectives when your brother went missing! Did he even care?"

Derek swallows hard, takes a couple of steps back without meaning to. Ash isn't having that. "Don't listen to him," he says fiercely, glaring at his father. "You'd love that, wouldn't you? Get us thinking you're the only one who cares about us. You know what else Peter wasn't doing? _Burning down our house!_"

Dad rolls his eyes. "It wasn't the best course of action-"

"The _best course of action_? Are you serious right now?" Ash is murderous. "I can't even- And Peter went back to the station every day to find out if they knew anything! That's how he and Kate started dating in the first place!"

Dad stills. "Kate _Argent_?" he repeats, as if he's never heard anything less believable in his entire life. "My little brother is dating _Kate Argent_? Proposing to _Kate Argent_? Oh, _Peter_."

He looks deeply sympathetic for about four seconds, and then he bursts out laughing. "I'm sorry," he says, wiping his streaming eyes, not sounding sorry at all. "Peter. Petey. I know you've always been a bit of a fibber, but this is special, even for you." He shakes his head incredulously. "Ash, wasn't it just a little bit suspicious that you never got to meet Kate?"

"I've met her!" Ash insists. "She's beautiful and nice and she loves Peter and _I wrote her a song_!"

Behind him, Derek ducks his head again, ears pink with second-hand embarrassment. Dad's still chuckling softly. Peter clears his throat.

"Give Ash and Derek what you brought them and leave my house," he says icily.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Dad lies again. "I guess I struck a nerve." Next, he addresses Ash, who is still sputtering. "Say what you want about Lacey, kiddo, but she actually knows I exist. Anyway," he says hastily, digging into his overlarge pockets and pulling out a shopping bag, "Derek. I'm sorry your mother-"

"Don't you dare," Ash snarls. "Don't you dare act like you're any better, you asshole. And don't you dare act like you give a shit about any of us. If you did, you'd stop fucking _drinking_."

Dad rolls his eyes Hale-style, his whole body participating. "I am not an alcoholic," he says.

"You burned down our _house_!"

"I was sober!" Dad insists. "It wasn't the best course of action, but I was not drunk. I knew what I was doing."

"Well that just makes it worse!"

"Asher," Dad says patiently, "sometimes a parent-"

"Enough," Peter snaps. "David, if you have something for the kids, give it and go. If not, we're going inside. It's February, and Derek doesn't have a jacket."

Shit. Derek's shaking again. He tries to stop. God, this isn't normal. He isn't normal. Nothing is normal, anymore.

What the fuck does normal even mean, now?

"Fine," Dad says, slumping slightly, fight stance going limp. "I just wanted to- I bought you an iPod. Ash already has one, but I thought- Music helped me through a lot. It really turned my life around when I was young-"

"-And helped shape you into the fantastic father you are today!"

"Asher, please." Dad holds out the bag to Derek. "I don't expect you to forgive me-"

"I didn't hear an apology!"

"-but I really am trying, Derek," Dad goes on, like Ash isn't even there. "I wish you could see that."

Derek looks at Ash, who seems suddenly smaller, bravado-bare and betrayed. He swallows hard, tries to fit the words together right in his throat, force them out.

"That's all I wanted to say," Dad says, and Ash gets his anger back, fires off some retort like it's nothing, like he's just pissed and Dad didn't just-

Everything is so fucking wrong. Why is Dad treating Ash like that? How can Dad treat Ash and Peter like that? He's not Dad, not the one Derek remembers, not the dad he dreamed about, the one he thought would find him. This isn't the dad who taught Ash to play piano, who laughed at all of Mom's stupid jokes when everyone else groaned, who hand-painted Damon's nursery as a Mother's Day surprise, who came to every one of Caleb's lacrosse games, Laura's debates, Derek's swim meets, and Ash's gigs, who told Aaron and Eli bedtime stories while strumming his guitar, who blushed when some random lady from one of his seminars hit on him, made it clear that he was taken and couldn't be happier. That Dad is just _gone_, and this one's like a bad joke of him, all his small flaws completely overtaking him. It makes Derek kind of anxious, his stomach churning, and he doesn't know what to say to this Dad. Something about how Ash doesn't deserve to be treated like that, you're his dad, what's wrong with you? But Derek's not really in a position to ask anyone what's wrong with them, he's pretty sure. Not when he's the biggest freak in town. So he swallows hard again, and he takes the bag, and he doesn't say anything. He doesn't even look him in the eye.

"Thanks," he mutters, because instincts are instincts, even rusty from little use after eight months. Ash huffs out an exasperated breath and drags Peter and Derek to the door, where the three of them go inside and leave David Hale in the cold.

* * *

"They really are dating," Ash says, before Derek can say anything. "She comes over all the time. She was here just last week, we saw that Supernatural episode with the racist truck-"

Derek does not repeat, "Racist truck," flatly, like a total asshole. Derek says, "I believe you." It doesn't feel like enough. "I'm sorry," he tries again.

"Dude," Ash says, giving Derek a look he doesn't fully understand. "I already told you. It's not your fault he's an ass."

"Still," Derek says, unconvinced. "When Dad was- I should've said something."

"Forget about it," Ash says easily, and grabs Dad's bag. "Let's see what he got you, huh?"

Derek shrugs. Ash digs in and comes up with a new-in-box iPod classic and shiny black headphones. he whistles approvingly. "_Dude_. These cost like four hundred bucks. Each."

Eight hundred dollars is a lot of money, Derek thinks. A lot of money that Mom and Aaron and Eli and Damon could definitely use. If Derek sells this stuff and gives that money to Mom, maybe she won't be so tired. Maybe she'll look at him the way she used to. Before. Like she could count on him. That was his thing, really, if he ever had a thing: that's Derek. He's dependable. And he doesn't even really like music, anyway. He liked how his dad would play guitar and sing, low and warm and sweet, and he liked a couple of songs Cam liked, but he doesn't like music enough to waste eight hundred dollars on it, he figures.

But he doesn't have anything, anymore. The fire took out everything and no one thought he'd come back so there's nothing, nothing that says Derek on it, nothing that's _his_. He's wearing Ash's clothes and Caleb's sneakers, he's sleeping in a guest bedroom at Peter's house, shaving with Peter's razor, using Peter's computer. He misses having things that are just his. It doesn't really even matter what it is, he just needs _something_.

And it's only fair, isn't it, that Dad buys it, whatever it is. Dad owes him, doesn't he? He didn't apologize but he spent eight hundred dollars and he asked Derek for forgiveness and isn't that pretty much the same thing?

And who says Mom would even appreciate anything from Derek anymore? Maybe she'd take the money and keep looking at him exactly like she always looks at him now: the face people make looking at something broken just after it breaks. Derek's slipped out of her hands and now he's a fucking smashed teacup to her, a shattered mirror, seven years of bad luck, in pieces on the floor, staring up at faces full of shock and horror. Money's not gonna change that, probably. Probably nothing will.

And Derek's selfish. He wants this, wants the new shiny expensive toys. He wants to feel like Before Derek, who got this kind of stuff all the time and didn't even think twice about it. He just wants to feel normal in some tiny way. Is that so bad?

So he keeps it. He keeps all of it: the iPod, the headphones, the $200 iTunes card tucked underneath. He feels kind of horrible, spoiled and selfish, but he also feels human in a way he hasn't for months. It's stupid, how having things that are just his makes it a little bit easier to breathe, a little bit easier to calm down. It's proof he really is out, no matter what she said. He can't believe her (he can't not believe her), not really, not when he can get up and go outside whenever he wants, not when he has things that are just his, not when he has Ash and Peter right there (not when he can feel eyes on his back, a chill in the air, when she's just out of sight, always, always). It's still terrifying, he's still terrified, still catches himself shaking and doesn't know when he started or how to stop, still has nightmares where he's trapped, paralyzed, powerless, where she-

But this is different, this could be okay. She's not here (he can't see her, anyway), she's not touching him (what's she waiting for?), and he's a real person again (he's lying to himself, Laura would say _denial is a maladaptive coping mechanism_). People can see him, people can hear him, when he asks a question, someone answers. It's stupid, it's so fucking stupid, how fucking amazing it feels to finally get some answers, even to idiotic things, things that don't matter: small talk, sarcasm, rhetorical questions. He feels real for the first time in forever, and having things of his own is one more part of that. So it doesn't matter, really, that Dad isn't the dad Derek remembers, or it does, but not enough to make Derek give up his newest ticket to finally feeling human.

So Ash gets the scissors and the three of them do intensive surgery on the elaborate plastic packaging till the headphones are free, and Peter shows Derek the simple snap procedure of setting up and syncing his iPod, and Ash gives Derek an extensive education on the distinctions between individual musical genres Mom had lumped together as unacceptable. One more reason for Dad to mutter bitter little comments under his breath now, but he _hadn't_ before. He'd gone along with all of it, cranked acceptable Christian rock and seemed to like it, strummed his own creations on an old beloved Gibson J100. Mom's hymns were all Johnny Cash and guys like him, rumbling moans of drunk old men quoting The Good Book, stuff none of the Hale kids had ever really gotten into, but scrolling through the song selection sometime that first week at Peter's, Derek finds God's Gonna Cut You Down, lets the familiar voice seep through his bones, and actually listens. It's a threat, but it feels like reassurance: a promise of revenge.

Derek's not stupid; he can't even fully manage denial. She's all around him still, in the invisible eyes prickling his back, phantom fingernails scraping still-healing scabs, goosebumps rising on his skin, in long reaching shadows and the kind of blindness that comes with too much bright light after not much at all. The nightmares aren't stopping and they aren't getting better; if anything, they're worse, filled with disconnected pain and terror as he forgets the exact details. He's losing memories like sand through a timer, and it doesn't make any of this better, it just makes him scared of everyone, because he can't remember her face anymore, just the weight of her and the pain and the helplessness and the disgust, horror, fear, anger. More than anything he's angry, now, but he's not stupid enough to think he can hurt her, not after all that, not after what she said, not when he doesn't even remember what she looks like. The first lines of the song sounds at first too close to a warning for Derek, but by the chorus it's her, it's his anger at her, Derek's warning for her. It's anger spilling through his veins, it's her pinned and screaming and him laughing over her. Johnny Cash talks about God but Derek doesn't know about that, doesn't know if God's got anything to do with it, really, but Mom's hymn becomes Derek's revenge fantasy, his anchor to sanity.

Now, though, Ash takes him through Anthrax and Megadeth. Alice in Chains and Metallica, Screaming Trees and Nirvana, Brand New and Rise Against, AFI and Placebo, Unwritten Law and Blink 182, Neutral Milk Hotel and Andrew Jackson Jihad, Bright Eyes and The Dresden Dolls, Linkin Park and Green Day.

When Ash is confident that Derek has at least a basic understanding about the difference between the many subgenres of metal, he checks his watch and leaps up like his chair is on fire, grinning broadly. "It's almost time!" He goes suddenly crestfallen as he realizes something. "Dad should've stayed, he'd've seen I wasn't lying!"

"Your father can believe what he wants," Peter says, pulling a package of grape Red Vines from the snack cabinet. "I know the truth. That's all I need."

"Yeah," Ash says, nodding. "Yeah, you're right. He'd just try and ruin it, anyway." A bucket of honey-flavored pretzel twists joins the licorice on the table as he explains to Derek, "She would've been here yesterday, but she thought you'd want to get settled in instead of meeting a stranger. She's really smart." Derek has to agree. The last thing he wanted to do yesterday, freshly abandoned, oversensitive and irritable, was meet new people. Even now, reintroduced to Ash and Peter, the house and the bakery, bright lights and new-old sounds, the vague shape of strange woman rises in his mind like a red alert.

He pushes it away. He will not freak out in front of Peter's girlfriend. He will be cool, calm, collected. He'll be normal.

Except he's freaking out. He's suddenly stifled, trapped, finding it hard to breathe.

"Okay, so last week," Ash attempts to explain, "Dean's ex- Dean's a hunter, of monsters, he's a monster hunter, him and Sam, that's his brother- anyway, last week his ex, her name's Cassie, but it doesn't matter really, I don't think she'll be on the show again, but anyway, she dumped him cuz he told her he hunts monsters, not last week, like years before the episode started, and anyway she was like, are you kidding me? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life, but then years later there was this racist truck, oh by the way Cassie's black, anyway, this ghost truck is like haunted by a racist and it's running people of the road and smashing through houses and..."

"Anyway," Ash says, what feels like a million years later, "That's what happened last week." The doorbell rings, and he beams. "She's here! You're gonna love her, don't even worry about it."

"Why would I worry?" Derek lies. Ash flashes him a thumbs up and let her in.

She's tall and blonde and beautiful and she smiles right at him.

"Derek, right? I'm Kate. Peter's told me so much about you."

Nothing comes out of Derek's mouth at all.

"It's starting!" Ash urges them, ready to physically drag them all to the TV. Derek follows the others numbly, ignores everything but the screen as the show starts.

He's sure. He's surer than sure. But it's impossible.

It's her. Kate's _her._

_Previously on Supernatural, _the show begins.

"_I have these nightmares. And sometimes, they come true."_


	5. Chapter 5

Maybe the stupidest mistake Derek makes in seventeen years is thinking that family means you're okay, or you will be. That houses full of people you're related to are inherently safer than dark rooms and strangers in the middle of nowhere. That if you could just shut up your brain, shut up every memory and instinct and sense, if you could just get inside a house full of family and shut the door and lean against it and take a breath, nothing bad could get in. Nothing really bad, anyway.

Derek's an idiot.

She, _Kate_, she's more-

This is more her family than his. They love her. Ash loves her, Peter loves her-

Because he does, he does love her. It takes no time to figure it out, once he sees Peter looking at her, adoring, arm loose around her shoulders as she kicks off her heels and dips closer to him. She doesn't look crazy. She looks a little tired around the eyes, comfortable.

She never looked comfortable like that with Derek. When she wasn't- Sometimes she'd just peel off him, stare like he was a sleeping tiger, like she was scared of him. And he thought he'd like that, her scared of him, keeping away, but he didn't. Didn't like her wide dark eyes, her clenched jaw, her edging away from him like _he_ was the dangerous one. It scared him, made him stare down at his own skin and try to figure it out, try to figure out why she hated him so much. Pretty soon he learned to hate his body, his skin, himself too. To feel sick just looking at the parts of him not covered in bruises, the bare exposed parts, milky white and wrong, all of him looked so wrong. Still looks wrong in the right light, makes him want to strip it off, cover it up in rough scar tissue, scabs and crusty dirt, anything to take what he was and make it into something new, harder, stronger. Something no one would ever want to touch.

She takes a grape Red Vine and watches the screen, but Derek can't pay attention. He's frozen in place, not trying to breathe, just watching her, how normal she looks. How normal all of this looks, the beautiful happy family, and him the horrible little dark poltergeist haunting and wrecking and determined and desperate to destroy all of it, because it isn't _fair_. It isn't _fair_, her destroying him destroying his family destroying his entire world and getting to come home to this. The screen splashes with the title card and a commercial starts, and Ash twists halfway around, saying, "That's just the teaser, it'll get much bett-" He stops when he sees the look on Derek's face. "Derek? Hey, man, are you o- What's wrong?" He sounds too loud for someone so far away; Derek startles badly when he looks away from Kate to find Ash's eyes so close. "Jeez- Turn it off. Peter, turn it off. We're all morons," Ash says. He puts a careful hand on Derek's shoulder. Derek flinches sharply, takes a nervous look back at Kate, who has her fingers wrapped around Peter's upper arm, is saying things to him too low for Derek to hear. What's she saying? How is she explaining this away? How is she going to explain it when he just _tells Peter_-

"Derek, man, I'm sorry," Ash says, hands in the air, backing away just slightly. Derek's head is suddenly killing him, the back of his head like she's done something, like she's hit him again and he's about to wake up right back where-

He presses his lips together, forces back the vomit in his throat, fights back tears.

_You're not getting away…_

His head is spinning and he needs to be sick but he can't move. He can't move at all.

…_not really._

His heart is clanging in his chest, adrenalin all through him, every instinct screaming to run, but he can't move. He's sunk into the couch, only Ash separating him from Peter and _herherher._ And Ash is standing steps away, hands in the air, eyes wide, Derek can't have him to protect him, Ash is fourteen, he's not- Derek needs Dad, needs his dad back here to throw Peter through the wall and cut Kate's throat out. Who cares if he drinks who cares who _cares_? He wants to help, w-_wanted_ to help, and they just sent him away. Just sent him away and invited her in. Sober or drunk Dad wouldn't let her touch him. Wouldn't let her near him. Dad would kill her if he knew. He'd kill her and he'd kill Peter for letting her in, for_inviting_ her in, for _loving_ her-

How can he love her? How can he even stand her touching him?

How does she look like that, like she hasn't done anything wrong? How does she just sit there fucking _snuggled_ into his side like there's nothing wrong with her? With Peter's arm around her shoulders, only now looking at him like she just figured out something's not right, like she's_confused_ and _concerned_-

She stands up, steps toward him, still so convincingly innocent. She looks soft and warm and harmless. Soft blonde hair, sweet blue nail polish, soft pink painted lips uncurling from a smile, soft pitying look Derek's been getting ever since-

Ever since she let him go.

_You're not getting away, not really._

_Shut up, shut up-_

"Derek-" Even her voice is innocent, careful, just enough sympathy. He's never heard her, never seen her like this before. Even outside that party he knew she had sharp edges, maybe should've run but he thought- So what if she's different? I don't want another Lisa, do I?

But she never called him Derek before. She never called him that. She called him- she called him-

_You're mine, Sweetie. And I can always take you back._

His back is on fire.

"Get away from me," he snarls at all of them, near-blinded by tears, and he rears up onto his feet without meaning to, and then he's running, grabbing the doorknob and swinging it open, slamming it shut and running.

Outside, it's starting to snow.

* * *

"Look at this."

Deputy Chris Argent lays two large, glossy photographs on Sheriff John Stilinski's desk. The first is Derek Hale's back, technicolor with bruises. The second is his hands. Deep red welts circle his wrists, and a number of older, faded marks provide a backdrop.

John shudders and fights the instinct to look away. "I'm looking."

"See how dark those welts around his wrists are? They're new. Constant. Now look at the bruises on his back."

"They're half-healed," John realizes. "That one's going yellow already."

"Exactly," Chris agrees.

"You think they stopped hurting him some time before he was found," John says. "But the welts around his wrists-"

"They had him held in place. But that never changed."

"He never had a chance to fight back." John has dealt with murder, rape, he's dealt with child abuse; it's a small county but that stuff happens everywhere. But this... This is just too much, for too long, too clearly spelled out. And now that Stiles is attached-

"But why did they stop hurting him?" Chris interrupts John's train of thought. "Days, maybe weeks before they let him go. And why did they let him go? After eight months, that doesn't happen."

"It did here."

"And there's a reason. I just don't know what it is." Chris looks up from the photos. "How is he?"

"Against my advisement, his mother refuses to send him to therapy. She thinks, uh, 'Focusing on his trauma will make it worse' and she wants him to 'be productive instead of wallowing.'"

"You're kidding."

"Would I joke about this? But he's seventeen. It's her decision."

"Well, maybe she's on to something. Work on building his confidence back instead of having him relive the worst experience of his life for 45 minutes every Thursday. People bury these things for decades and they're fine."

"Or they're killing themselves," John counters. "I'm not an expert, but if my kid has something bugging him, it's a hell of a lot easier to tackle it early on than to let it grow legs and take over his head." He took another look at the second picture. "But it's not our job to pick fights with parents of the victim. Our job is to catch the sick bastard and cut his fucking balls off."

"His?" Chris frowns. "I thought you had something telling you the rapist was female."

"Yeah, til this." A third picture joins the first two. "Tell me that isn't what I think it is."

Chris squints at the photo. "I don't see- Oh. Holy- So what're we saying?"

"Well I'm not sayin' anything for sure, but the _evidence_ seems to be saying Derek fought back. He fought back so hard that whatever they were using to tie him up didn't cut it. So on month fuckin' eight of being-" John rubs his eyes, takes a short hiss of breath. "Of whatever the hell he went through, he was still bucking till the sonofabitch had to hold him down hard enough to leave a mark." He shakes his head. "Alright, let's just get through this."

But not two minutes later, he bursts out, "You know my kid's having nightmares? Eleven years old and it's all he can think about. Wakes up screaming Derek's name. Can you believe that?" He lays Kate's photos out on the desk like a map to the answer. "Look at that." He points to the burn, a shiny bright pink iced black. "_Sweetie._ You ever seen something so sick in your whole life?"

"Maybe it has some kind of-"

"I don't know what I was thinking, bringing him here. How'm I supposed to tell my genius kid that the monster in his closet isn't real when he's seen proof? Talked to proof. He's practically friends with proof."

"Well maybe-"

"Julie thinks he'll be okay as long as Derek's okay. Wants me to tell him he'll be right as rain any day now. But you tell me. How the fuck am I supposed to look at this and then tell my kid he'll be okay?Short of popping in where Derek lives every couple hours to make sure he's not downing Percocet by the bottle and choking on his own vomit, I'm lying. I'm lying to my kid, and he knows I'm lying. So I can tell him Derek's fine till I'm fucking blue in the face, but all I'm doing is making sure my kid never believes another word out of my mouth."

"You know, kids are a lot stronger than you'd think," Chris says. "Maybe Kate could talk to him. She had a real bad ex back in the day, but she came out the other side stronger than ever."

"Kate?" John repeats. "Our Kate? She's never told me a word about that!" He shakes his head. "Is it too much to want to track the guy down and beat his head in with a tire iron?"

"Too late," Chris says. "He killed himself years ago."

"And good riddance," John says. "Kate's the sweetest person I know- besides my wife, of course," he adds hastily. "What the hell kind of monster-" He shakes his head. "I don't think I'm gonna be any more insightful tonight. I need to see my wife and kid and remind myself there's still good in the world. You mind giving these pictures another look, see what else you can come up with, and maybe hug your sister for me, pass along the suggestion? It might be good for him, seeing how far she's come."

"I'll do that," Chris agrees. "Have a good night, Sheriff."

"We'll see," John says. "Just wait, my wife'll invite him for dinner."

* * *

John's driving slower than usual, watching out for black ice, when he spots a figure half-running, half stumbling through the light layer of snow.

"You have got to be kidding me," John mutters to himself as the kid slips on a patch of ice about five feet from his headlights. He sets the brake and gets out of the car.

"Derek?" This feels strangely like deja-vu. "I'm Sheriff John Stilinski. Remember me?" He offers a hand up, but Derek doesn't take it, and manages to get up off the ice with no help at all. He's shaking worse than he was at the station, and when he looks over his shoulder, John's stomach tightens.

Aw, hell.

"Is there someone out here with you?" he tries. "It's alright, I've got my gun, and it's a hell of a lot faster than whatever it is you're afraid of."

Derek's teeth are chattering. In what is coming to be a habit, John takes off his jacket and wraps it around the kid's shoulders. Derek flinches under his hands, but immediately shakes his head and says, "I don't know why I- It's fine if you- Thanks."

"You out here alone?" John tries again. Derek takes another jerky look behind him. "Yeah," he says. "I think so."

Okay, that's a start. John lets himself relax slightly. "So what brings you out here this time of night? Bit late for a run, isn't it?"

"I used to run at night all the time," Derek says. "Before- You know."

John does. There's a cosmic case of cognitive dissonance allowing John to look Derek in the eye without comparing every horrible photograph he just spend hours studying to the bruises right in front of him. But this isn't just some case, or a walking game of Spot the Difference. He's a kid. A kid Stiles needs to get through this.

So John doesn't flinch when Derek bows his head and his burn seems to scream for attention. Maybe that's the worst part, how he's marked like cattle. John tenses just thinking about how much that had to hurt, about how hard the kid must've bucked while some heartless sonofabitch burnt through his skin, but he forces himself calm.

"But tonight's not one of those nights, is it." It's not a question. There's no way Derek was just going for his usual nighttime run.

Derek shakes his head.

John ventures a guess. "Trouble at home?"

"I'm not at-" Derek says, and clams up, lips pressed together, staring at the snow-powdered ground by his scuffed sneakers.

Crap. John doesn't know what to say to that. He dodges. "How's your uncle treating you?"

That must hit a nerve; Derek wraps his arms around himself, looks John too dead-on. "Fine," he says, too steadily, overdoing the eye contact. "He's in love," he says, shrugging, eyebrows high. "Happy."

"Yeah?" John strains for a good segue, fails. Derek's eyes dart side to side like he thinks he's got a tail on him. "Well that's good. And you've... met Kate before, so-"

"I've met her," Derek says, expression unreadable.

"My secretary and right hand, uh, woman," John goes on, shouting at himself in his head. He didn't have to bring that up. He could've steered this conversation down a different road and ended up in the same place. But what's done is done. "You remind me of her, actually."

"I remind you of her," Derek echoes. John nods again, again.

"You've both been through a lot more than just about anyone I know, but you held on, and things can only get better from here."

Derek actually huffs out a laugh at that. John would pat himself on the back for getting the kid to crack a smile if it even came close to reaching his eyes. Derek shivers again, rubs his neck. There aren't many bruises there, but even in this pale light John can see the impression of what looks like a-

"Choke chain," he says to himself. Derek startles. "What?"

John holds Derek's gaze and cuts the crap.

"Derek, I want to catch whoever hurt you," he says. "You can tell me anything. I swear, I won't let anything bad happen to you."

Derek stares at him. He's got a stare as steady and unblinking as headlights in the dark, fixed on John like he's actually thinking about it. Like he remembers all of it too clear. Like there's a name wedged in his throat and he just needs someone he can trust not to kill him when he chokes it out.

John holds his breath.

But Derek shakes his head.

"I don't remember anything," he says.

John can't tell if he's lying. Maybe he's not lying. Is that good, forgetting all of it? Maybe it's better off forgotten. Maybe that's his best hope.

Or maybe he's terrified and lying through his teeth.

Either way, the kid's not a machine. You don't get something every time you put a coin in.

"I've got a number if you ever wanna talk," John says. "Actually- Here." He dips into his pocket, comes out with a pen and a book of tickets, scrawls his cell phone number on the top ticket, and presents it to Derek. "This is my personal cell phone. No one answers this but me. You want to talk to me, any reason, any time, you call that number. And if you don't want to talk to me, I'll pass the phone over to my wife and she won't tell me a damn word of anything you say unless you give her the okay." Derek looks uncertain, but he takes the ticket, folds it in and stuffs it in the pocket of his jeans. "It doesn't have to be a big deal," John adds. "Between you and me, Stiles is getting to be that age where he doesn't share as much with his mom. Julie would love just having someone to talk to." Is he overdoing it, making Julie sound like she has no life outside their kid? Maybe, but this whole thing is her idea. She's closer than a stranger but further than family, the perfect balance for a shoulder to lean on. And giving Derek the number means it's all on his terms, his choice. That's Julie's hope, anyway. Chances are Derek won't look at the number twice, but what's the harm?

"You know, your uncle's place isn't far," John says after a slightly awkward pause. "How about I drive you back? I bet he's real worried about you."

"I can walk," Derek says stiffly. Something tells John if the kid starts walking, it won't be in the direction of home. And he really can't see that having a happy ending.

So John does the only thing he can think of.

He invites Derek to dinner.

* * *

Needless to say, Stiles is thrilled. John calls Peter and gets Kate, who understands completely. It's an overload of change after an overload of trauma. It's no wonder Derek got overwhelmed. It's good that he's accepting help from people who are practically strangers. It shows he can still trust. That's huge.

John can't agree more, but something about how Kate calls him and his family "practically strangers" makes him bristle defensively, though he can't put his finger on why. In any case, Derek worried for nothing, and Peter agrees to pick Derek up on his way to work tomorrow.

Dinner is hardly awkward at all, to John's relief. Julie kicks it off by talking about her kickboxing class over tomato soup and grilled cheese. The women are _fierce_, and some of them are getting really powerful punches in, and more importantly, twisting and ducking and bobbing and weaving to avoid the blow just about every time. It's a huge growth considering most of them didn't know to keep their thumb outside of their fist in the first class.

Derek barely touches his food, lips pressed together, eyes sharp on Julie, listening like he's expecting to be tested on the stuff.

Stiles very carefully doesn't look in his direction except when he thinks John isn't paying attention.

John's paying attention.

* * *

Derek makes a mental note to look up self-defense tips on Peter's computer. He's done waiting to be saved.

* * *

After dinner, Derek rushes to the bathroom, barely locking the door and turning the sink and shower on before he vomits again, chokes over the toilet, but covers it with toilet paper and flushes twice so they won't know. He even tries gargling Listerine to cover up the smell; it burns but kind of helps, maybe. Once he's done he watches the water run in the sink and shower and thinks about how stupidly obvious it'll be that he's hiding something if the shower's been running and he's not even wet, but he doesn't want to take his clothes off, ever, anywhere, at all, and he checks the lock again, again just thinking about it, itchy patches of sweat pocketing under his armpits. He feels trapped, cold all over except where he's sweating. He checks the lock again-

"You alright in there?" Sheriff Stilinski says. Derek jumps about two feet high, swears and bites down hard on his bottom lip to stop swearing. "Fine," he says, too loudly, heart still rattling in his chest, and panics, staring at the water running, staring at his sweaty reflection. He checks the lock again. His hands are shaking.

When the sheriff says, "You sure?" Derek presses his palm tight over his mouth and breathes through the gaps in his fingers as his eyes well up.

"Can I-" he says, wretchedly, and he knows his voice isn't right, that he's giving it away. "I'll be out soon," he says, and, in a blaze of panic, he peels Ash's too-tight, stinking, sweat-stained shirt off and ducks sideways so the top half of his body is under the water and forces himself to stay in place, shivering so hard his teeth chatter. Under the water he cries just a little bit louder, hiccups and has trouble catching his breath, is suddenly hit with the realization that he can't _breathe, _and he buckles till he's folded over the side of the tub, gasping quick and shallow, water pouring down over him, soaking him through. There's a knocking at the door that knocks the breath right into him, scares him out of his skin, then Julie's voice, concerned, saying, "Derek, honey, is something wrong? Please open the door." The thought of it has Derek horrified even after he realizes that's not what she means, she can't mean that, can she? But he forces himself up, out from under the water, to check the lock again.

"Open the door, Derek," Sheriff Stilinski says beside her, and Derek bursts into tears. The doorknob rattles. Derek can't breathe. His stomach twists, recoiling, and then he's heaving, tears streaming down his face, just as the door opens, and they're staring at him like Mom stared at him, horrified into silence, and he ducks his head and is sick again.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Sheriff Stilinski says gently. "I was w- uh, concerned."

He's sitting stiffly on the recliner across from Derek, staring down his coffee like it's a suspect.

"He was worried," Julie says from her seat on the couch beside him. She isn't looking away at all; her gaze is intense, almost uncomfortable. "We both were. Are you sure you're alright?"

It's easy enough to understand, once he's mostly dry under a towel and an oversized sweatshirt, breathing fine and barely shivering at all, a foam cup of tea warm in his hands. They won't say it directly, but he gets it, why they're so shaken up, why they're tiptoeing around it.

"After what you've been through, it's completely understandable if you've been having- thoughts-" Julie tries, and Derek gets it, okay? He gets it. What they're saying without saying it.

They thought he was trying to-

They thought he was trying to kill himself.

They still do, maybe. They tried sending Stiles off to do homework, but Derek's sure he must be close, listening in.

"I'm- yeah," Derek says, humiliated, face heated and splotchy. They think he's crazy, probably. Suicidal and crazy and sick. "I wasn't going to kill myself," he says, just puts it out there, and stares at them, daring them to argue.

"Of course not," Sheriff Stilinski says hurriedly, relieved and slightly skeptical. Derek swipes at his eyes.

"I used to get panic attacks," he says matter-of-factly. "Like six years ago. And now-" He shakes his head. "But I wasn't going to kill myself."

"Good," Stiles says from the kitchen, and the Stilinskis go still. Derek starts to sweat again, fists at his eyes again. Fuck, he's seen this story already. He's seen how everyone who looks at him goes still and sad and pale and stressed, how he ruins everything just by existing. How they all start off well-meaning and nice and end up like Mom, like Dad, like everyone everyone everyone. Derek destroys everything he touches.

And now they're going to, they're going to call Peter to take him away, take him back to _her_, because they can't do this, can't handle the heaviness of being near him.

But Stiles comes closer, sits on Derek's other side, feet away from his worried parents. "Good," he says again. And then he says, after a moment of introspection, "Hey, do you like Johnny Depp?"

* * *

Stiles fires up the DVD player and the two of them watch _Pirates of the Caribbean_ while Julie makes up the guest bedroom. About ten minutes in, John joins them. The Hales tried having movie night a couple of times, but they could never decide on a choice everyone liked, especially with Mom vetoing anything with the slightest sign of gore, guns, or gross jokes. They watched _The Notebook _once and that was the end of that. From then on it was animation or comedy, and a pretty limited selection besides. Cam was unusually unsympathetic.

"Yeah, your life sucks," he deadpanned. "Great big family full of people who actually like each other? Fuck, how do you stand it?"

From this side of it, Derek has to agree. He'd had it good. He'd had it really good, and all he saw was how his mother wouldn't let him go watch_Batman Begins_. Now Peter'll probably let him watch anything he wants, but everything else is so wrong Derek can't even breathe right. It takes more effort, and his throat still burns from screaming, from vomiting, from vomiting up blood from his shredded throat. It still hurts to swallow, to talk, to anything, and in ten other places besides. But nothing's broken, nothing really even that bad, just a lot of bruises, a lot of annoying aches and itches but nothing permanent, nothing that won't fade soon enough. Soon enough it'll all be gone, probably, except the scars that won't, and maybe that's okay. Maybe he needs the reminder.

Maybe he's smarter now.

Less stupid, anyway.

* * *

Derek doesn't want to wake them up by screaming, so he doesn't risk going to sleep. He keeps the light on and plays Solitaire on his iPod until the battery runs out, then walks around the room, opening drawers at random, searching for something to keep him awake. He's halfway through a battered copy of _Good Omens_ when he hears someone scream.

"_Derek!_"

He startles, nearly drops the book. No. They said he was okay. Julie said he was okay.

But that was before- before this. Tonight. Before he thought Derek was gonna _kill himself_.

Fuck, he really is traumatized now. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

He feels his way through the dark hallway, hypersensitive of every shadow but not wanting to wake up the Stilinskis by turning on lights, and finally finds Stiles' room, fists at his sides. The kid is fighting a sea of blankets, sweat tangling his short hair. "Don't," he mumbles miserably. Derek closes his eyes, forces back, tries to force back the itch starting up behind his eyelids. He opens them as Stiles whines, "Stop it, leave 'im alone."

"Stiles," Derek tries, not sure what to do. His back tingles, and he jerks his head to look behind his shoulder, but it's too dark to see anything, anyone, and he can't hear anything except-

"Said leav'im _alone_!" Stiles howls suddenly, thrashing in his blankets.

"Stiles!" Derek tries again, hoarsely. His mouth is very dry. He sucks at his lower lip until he can swallow again and says, "Wake up. It's just a nightmare."

"Stop it, _stop-_"

Derek grabs his shoulder, and Stiles rocks his arm back and punches Derek in the stomach.

* * *

"Sorry," Stiles says for the fortieth time, looking at the offending hand like he's never seen it before.

"It's okay," Derek says for the fiftieth time. "I'm fine."

Stiles doesn't exactly believe him. They're quiet for a while; Stiles thinks about Derek saying "I wasn't going to kill myself." _Wasn't_, not _won't_. That promise doesn't mean anything.

Instead of saying that, he says, "It was a good punch, though, right?"

"Definitely," Derek says. "You take your mom's classes?"

"I wish," Stiles says. "But she doesn't want me to learn anything but defense yet. I learned actual punching from videos on YouTube. Scott and Isaac and me practice all the time."

He stops, suddenly, his eyes fastened on the pale pink imprint of chain links on Derek's neck and throat.

"It's worse than it looks," Derek blurts out, following his eyes. "I mean, it looks worse than it is. It didn't even really hurt that much." He's lying, of course he's lying, but Stiles doesn't have to know that.

"No, yeah, I know that," Stiles says, and immediately regrets it when Derek's brows draw together. "I mean-" He's maybe the biggest jerk in Beacon County outside of whoever actually-

"You threw up," he says, face heated. "Are you sick?"

"I'm fine," Derek tries. Stiles stares him down, skeptical. "I don't know," Derek admits. "I just ate too much, I think."

Something clicks in Stiles' brain. "You should drink," he says. "Like a lot. You're probably dehydrated. And I think we have applesauce-"

"Applesauce," Derek repeats.

"Yeah, but you should drink something first," Stiles says, and then he's on his feet, and Derek's following him to the kitchen.

* * *

Derek's eyes trail up from the percolator to the bird clock hanging over it on the wall. It's eleven minutes after the owl. He feels suddenly, horribly guilty for keeping Stiles up this late. For the nightmares, and the way Stiles keeps turning back like he's making sure Derek's still behind him. For everything.

This is worse than Mom and Dad, what happened to them. Stiles is a kid. Derek's turning a _kid_ into an empty worrying shell who wakes up screaming his name, who gets out of bed at 1:06 and makes him_ tea_.

"Stop it," he snaps. Stiles' hands still around the spoon. His eyes are wide.

"Why are you so worried about me?" Derek snaps. "You don't even know me."

"Yeah I do," Stiles says. Derek's eyes narrow. "Fine. Maybe I don't," Stiles says. "Maybe I just wanna help."

Derek scoffs. "I don't need your help."

Stiles goes pink, stung. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, okay, good for you." He shoves the tea in Derek's direction- "Spill it out if you want. I don't care."- and marches away, not looking back.

Derek just holds the tea for a while, takes a seat by the table and holds the tea and tries not to think at all.

When he wakes up, there's a new one in its place, and sun is streaming through the living room windows.

* * *

"A choke chain," John Stilinski seethes, staring down at the photos again. "They had him on a goddamn choke chain. Like an _animal_."

Chris doesn't even try to cut in this time.

"What the hell kind of county is this?" John rants. "Huh? Who are these people? And what are we doing? Just sitting around waiting for my kid to disappear and turn up eight months later looking like he's been to Hell and back? Your kid? What the hell are we doing here?"

"This is a good thing," Chris says, unable to contain himself any longer. John's eyes narrow.

"How do you figure?"

"This is a lead," Chris insists. "How many people in Beacon County just have choke chains lying around?"

"Everyone training a dog, to start."

"Well that narrows it down," Chris says patiently. John huffs out a sigh. The deputy's right. As sickening as all of this is, as much as seeing that sweet kid next to his son at his kitchen table and matching his wounds to the pictures on his desk make him want to punch something out, this is a good thing.

"Alan Deaton would know all about that," John says, nodding. "I'll go talk to him. You check out the park, see if any dog walkers heard anything suspicious on their routes these past months." It's heartening, finally having a lead. John nods again, again. "Those were zip ties on his wrists," he says. "See what you can make of that."

* * *

The vet shakes his head. "I don't advise using that kind of collar."

"Inhumane, is it?" John's hands are not quite fists at his sides.

"I believe so," Deaton says.

"Right," John says, getting a hold of himself. "Anyone around here not follow your advice?"

* * *

Laura bursts into Caleb's apartment without knocking.

"Come in," he says pointedly from behind his copy of _The Corrections_. He's pretty sure he knows what this is about, and he works to keep his breaths even, his face casual as he turns the page and reads the first line he sees four times in a row.

"They found him," his sister says. She's run track for four years, but now she's slightly out of breath, still in a state of shock. He doesn't have to look up to know she's pacing, heels clicking on the checkered linoleum. "Jesus, Cal, are you listening? They _found_ him."

"It's been on the news a lot," Caleb says, like he didn't watch that first report with the wind knocked out of him, that old flyer of Derek above the scrolling ribbon of text, the news woman monotone before a backdrop of his half-destroyed family home. Like it doesn't matter at all. Laura snatches the book from his hands.

"_Please_ tell me you're joking," she snaps. "They found- You knew they found Derek and you didn't call me that second?" She stares at him. "You absolute piece of shit, don't you_ care_?"

"Cue the dramatics," Caleb sighs, rolling his eyes. Laura's always lived life like the heroine of a Lifetime movie, making fierce speeches and fighting him on absolutely everything. New York's changed her, relaxed her, or maybe it was the whole family falling to pieces, but this news has brought the old Laura back and riled up as ever, so Caleb gets to play Straw-Man Argument to her Voice of the Voiceless. "I thought she would call you, okay? And it was on the news. Give me my book back."

"Of course she didn't call me," Laura says bitterly. Laura Adelaide Hale stars as a destroyed boy's last hope in a story of trust, survival, and a brother who doesn't buy this crappy fiction for a second. "Calling me would mean admitting she was _wrong_. And you know we don't have a television." She hides the book behind her back. "So what, you're not going home?"

"Going home," Caleb repeats, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. She stops pacing to look him in the eyes, that perfected unwavering Laura Adelaide Hale stare. No one can stare like Laura can. Violins appear out of nowhere and play symphonies. Clocks stop ticking. Wolves howl in the distant woods. "You're serious." Derek used to try to copy her. His eyes would water, and Caleb would laugh and ruffle his hair, clap him on the shoulder. Say, "Don't take it too hard, buddy, she can out-stare Medusa." Derek would frown and fist at his eyes and say, "I almost got it. One more time."

He picked up a stare of his own, a wide-eyed kicked-puppy look when he got hurt unexpectedly. That week after Lisa dumped him, he was inconsolable. It was fucking awful.

"I just have to see him," Laura says. "The kids, too. They don't like her any more than we do."

"Do what you want," Caleb says, grabbing for his book. Laura spins out of reach.

"What is wrong with you?" she demands. "Maya gets what this means, why don't you? You're his _family_."

Caleb cuts the crap and levels with her.

"Laura," he sighs in his best patronizing tone, "he ran away."

"Caleb Benjamin Hale, that is such bullshit and you know it," Laura snaps.

Caleb shrugs.

"Even Cam was saying it-" Everyone was saying it. Derek's not some defenseless little kid, there's no way-

And they found him. Doesn't that prove it? Doesn't that prove it was all just a joke?

"Cam's a bully and a liar who didn't want to admit he didn't know shit about his best friend!" Laura says fiercely. "Derek wouldn't do that."

"He was feeling neglected, overshadowed, looking for attention," Caleb explains slowly. "Ask Maya. She's the psychology expert."

"So you're not even gonna welcome him back," Laura says. Caleb grimaces at the thought. Why, and for what? How's it gonna help anyone, Caleb coming back home? It was some big cry for attention. He was down because Lisa dumped him, he wanted out. And fine, maybe he didn't mean for Dad to start drinking again or for Mom to lose her mind, but that's what happened. That's what happened because Derek _ran_.

So what's Caleb need to be there for? The round of fucking applause?

Caleb nods, shrugs. Fixes his glasses again. "So you think he, what, got taken? He was sixteen. Practically an adult. Strong, too. And a runner. There's no way-"

"Shut up." Even Lofty Laura can't fight logic. _Shut up_. How intelligent. Caleb scoffs.

He throws down his last point. "And you really think, if someone had taken him, he'd be alive after eight months? They'd have found his body in a ditch somewhere half a year ago!"

Checkmate. She stares at him again, like she can't believe him, like this is all _his_ fault.

"Go to hell," she says, glaring at him, and throws the Franzen novel against the wall, knocking over Caleb's bong lamp.

"Hey! Easy!" he protests, running to right it, but she's already gone, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

He sees those eyes all the fucking time. Closes his eyes, and there's Derek just staring. Wide-eyed and scared, confused, hurt, abandoned. His little brother has been fucking haunting him for as long as Caleb's tried to put him out of his head.

So say he's wrong.

Say he's wrong, Derek doesn't want him there. Derek doesn't want to know what a piece of shit his big brother is. Say it's true, what they're saying, that he's been badly beaten, that he's really hurt, if it's _true_-

Fuck the runaway. That's what everyone said. They said he was a kid looking for attention. They all laughed. That makes sense! It's called middle child syndrome. It's called Derek being quiet, being overshadowed by his siblings the way Laura tried to overshadow her big brother since the day she was born. But Derek's not Caleb, he can't keep up, he just fades into the background. So he ran! It makes sense. He ran, he destroyed the entire family for a little attention, Caleb is right to hate him for that. This story, this sob story now is just a story. Caleb's not an idiot, he's not falling for that! All those asshole friends of his swore he was running from his freaky family. Laughing harder. All of them so certain it was a joke. They can't all be wrong.

It was a joke. It's just some joke, and Laura fell for it. But Caleb's not so emotional he can't see reason. It's been eight months! If it was true, if she was right, he'd be dead. And he's not dead. He's probably not even hurt. Laura wants him feeling guilty, wants his nightmares taking over again, wants him kicking the chair out from under himself because he's a piece of shit who won't come home for his stupid kiss-ass little brother who is probably just fine.

But if he's wrong- If it's real, and someone took Derek and hurt him, if he's out by some fucking Lifetime movie miracle-

If Derek meant to come home from wherever the hell he was and he couldn't, if someone_ took _him, _hurt_ him, and Caleb just-

If it's true, then the piece of shit brother who took off while they were still looking is the last person Derek'll want to see.

So what's it matter, really?

Either way, Caleb's never going back to Beacon Hills.

* * *

a.n.:

So this chapter was really kicking my ass. Basically, i had 20000 words of chapter 5 but half a dozen scenes missing, and every time I went to edit and write some more I'd get exhausted just rereading. So I'm splitting it up yet again. The moral of the story is, never trust me when i say x will happen in y chapter, because my outline never matches my finished product. However, trust that it will happen. I'll be updating my other WIPs soon too. Got a little stuck for a while, but I think I'm back on track. Sorry for the insane delay. -Rose

Also, I'm up for auction to raise money for AO3! Feel free to kick my butt into gear with your money: ao3auction . tumblr . / blueinkedbones


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